Guardianhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/guardian
en-usSun, 18 Feb 2018 00:23:46 -0500Sun, 18 Feb 2018 00:23:46 -0500The latest news on Guardian from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/iain-macintosh-interview-totally-football-show-guardian-podcast-muddy-knees-media-2017-9Football journalist Iain Macintosh wants to build a podcast empire — the Totally Football Show is just the starthttp://www.businessinsider.com/iain-macintosh-interview-totally-football-show-guardian-podcast-muddy-knees-media-2017-9
Sat, 30 Sep 2017 03:06:00 -0400Oscar Williams-Grut
<ul>
<li><strong>New podcast Totally Football Show attracts five million downloads in two months;</strong></li>
<li><strong>Founder Iain Macintosh wants to use success to launch more shows, beyond just sport;</strong></li>
<li><strong>Macintosh predicts podcast advertising boom: "<span>I think there's going to be a swing in that direction."</span></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/59cf427384da9522af3a3388-1203/leagueshow.jpg" alt="Iain Macintosh Totally Football Show Muddy Knees Media" data-mce-source="Muddy Knees Media" data-mce-caption="Iain Macintosh in the studio.">LONDON — Ever since the breakout success of true crime show Serial, podcasts have been one of the few areas of media that are growing.</p>
<p>The market is <a href="http://observer.com/2017/03/gimlet-creative-ebay-panoply-npr-podcast-revenue/">forecast to be worth $300 million (£223.5 million) this year</a> and is growing fast. <a href="https://newmediaeurope.com/uk-podcast-statistics/">An estimated 4.7 million people in the UK are listening.</a></p>
<p>The only thing anyone in UK football podcasting — perhaps a bigger niche than you might think — can talk about right now are defections from Guardian Football Weekly.</p>
<p>The Guardian launched Football Weekly in 2006 as a chat-show style audio round-up of World Cup action. Since then it has grown into one of the UK's most popular podcasts, regularly charting in the top 10 and averaging 150,000 downloads per episode. Central to its popularity was its gregarious, pun-loving host James Richardson — probably best known as the host of Channel 4's well-loved <em>Football Italia</em>.</p>
<p>But Richardson, podcast producer Ben Green, and regular contributor Iain Macintosh surprised fans in late July by announcing they were leaving the Guardian to set up their own, rival venture. The news was described by more than a few Twitter users as the biggest shock of the transfer window.</p>
<p>"When you see the response to the news when it came out — we pretty much broke Twitter for a day," Iain Macintosh told Business Insider in a phone interview this week.</p>
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Forget neymar, Biggest shock of the transfer window is james Richardson leaving football weekly podcast, sad times </p>— Gareth Mabey (@gmabey) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/893594354551488514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 4, 2017</a>
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Mind blown by starting Guardian football podcast season and realising James Richardson and others left to start their own thing </p>— Tom Thorogood (@TomThorogood) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/893404052142379012?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 4, 2017</a>
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<p>Macintosh, known for his buoyantly delivered "Hellos" at the start of podcasts, was the mutiny leader. A football journalist by trade, Macintosh said he could see podcasts were the future after guesting on the Guardian and other shows and listening to podcasts himself.</p>
<p>"We're 10 years down the line really for podcasts," he says. "It's less of a niche thing and more into the mainstream. I always look at my parents — when my parents are talking about something, that's when I know the cut-through moment is there. It's there now."</p>
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Probably the biggest transfer news of the summer James Richardson has left the Football Weekly podcast 😥 </p>— Angelo Trofa (@angt34) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/892287669513965569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2017</a>
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James Richardson leaving the Guardian's podcast has shaken me to my very core. I have no idea where to get my weekly quota of awful puns. </p>— Francis Gray (@franco_gray) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/891988843360120832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 31, 2017</a>
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<p>But why break from the Guardian? It would easy to see it a move motivated by avarice — all three of the breakaway podcasters have an ownership stake in the new business, Muddy Knees Media, and will share any spoils. Suspicions aren't helped by the fact that the Totally Football Show, the trio's first production, sounds remarkably similar to the Guardian's output.</p>
<p>But Macintosh says it's not about the money but about creative control.</p>
<p>"There's so much freedom in podcasts — it doesn't have to be just the standard panel, the standard current affairs, everyone getting their takes on everything," he says. "The success of some of the other stuff that you see in the industry just shows you what is possible. I mean My Dad Wrote a Porno [a comedy podcast about a middle-aged man writing a pornographic novel] — that would never get commissioned by anyone. But in the podcast world, there's a chance."</p>
<p>Going independent means Macintosh, Richardson, and Green can try new things and not worry if their experiments don't all come off.</p>
<p>"There are an awful lot of reasons and every person involved has got their own motivations but obviously there's a desire for independence, for control," Macintosh says.</p>
<h2>'When the last football season ended this wasn't even a thing'</h2>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/59cf427384da9522af3a338a-1524/j1.jpg" alt="James Richardson Totally Football Show" data-mce-source="Muddy Knees Media" data-mce-caption="James Richardson, the host of the Totally Football Show.">Just weeks after announcing the split, the first edition of the Totally Football Show was released, timed to launch at the start of the new football season in early August. A second show focusing on the lower leagues of English football was launched two weeks ago.</p>
<p>Both sound slick and well rehearsed, but their launch has been much more seat-of-the-pants than it seems.</p>
<p>"When the last football season ended [in May] this wasn't even a thing," Macintosh says. "It was very, very late. Very late indeed.</p>
<p>"Ordinarily, you'd want about three or four months to set up a company like this. Just for the Totally Football Show. I think we had about two and a half, three weeks? It all just happened."</p>
<p>He adds: "It had always been in my head that podcasts were the way forward but the way it happened — I basically spent a week with a phone sellotaped to my ear."</p>
<p>Despite the hurried start, the trio still managed to pull together a consortium of private investors to fund the project. Macintosh says Muddy Knees Media is well-funded enough not to be looking at outside investment for now.</p>
<h2>5.7 million downloads and counting</h2>
<p>Incredibly, just eight weeks after its first show, the Totally Football Show and the Totally Football League Show have had 5.7 million downloads between them — <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/audioboom-totally-football-show-no-such-thing-as-a-fish-podcast-platforms-revenues-jump-2017-9">up from two million at the start of September.</a></p>
<p>"I wasn't entirely surprised when the numbers came in as high as they did," Macintosh says. "It was sort of what we'd hoped for. It's always been a thing of mine — get good people doing stuff that they're good at. And we've got the best presenter in James Richardson, the best producer in Ben Green. It's all about harnessing that power now and taking that power and spreading it out to the other shows."</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote float_right">We kind of have a rocket boost on everything we do</blockquote>
<p>Macintosh's ambition is to take Muddy Knees Media beyond football — beyond sport even — and turn it into a podcast production juggernaut.</p>
<p>"We're in talks now for a number of very different directions, as I say non-sport," he says. "There are three or four that are at the concept stage."</p>
<p>Macintosh hopes to have three football podcasts in production by the end of this year and launch another three titles in the first half of next year. Ben Green, better known to listeners as Producer Ben, is a keen wrestling fan and Macintosh has <a href="http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/Viral/the-totally-football-show-might-just-have-started-a-sports-podcast-revolution-36002577.html">talked elsewhere about the possibility of launching a WWE podcast.</a></p>
<p>"We've got the number now," he says. "The Football League Show, we've been able to advertise that for free straight to our own audience [through the Totally Football Show]. You'd kill for that audience if you were setting up a football league show now.</p>
<p>"We kind of have a rocket boost on everything we do and it's all about joining it all up — everything we do helping to support everything else. And this is before we even get to live shows and other commercial avenues that we can take."</p>
<h2>'The guys at Football Ramble are doing brilliant stuff'</h2>
<p>Ambition has been fuelled by the response of advertisers, which Macintosh says has been "really encouraging." Muddy Knees Media has already secured deals with subscription shaving startup Cornerstone and fantasy football game Fan League and is "deep in talks for more advertising."</p>
<p>"One of the things that really made a difference is a couple of days before we launched there was a story in the Sunday Times about Proctor &amp; Gamble," Macintosh recalls. "They had slashed online spending because they just didn't know where it was going. I saw that and thought, well, if your primary concern is you don't know who's seeing these adverts then, god, podcasts are great.</p>
<p>"There's no better medium for seeing who your audience is. The data that we get is so detailed. I think there's going to be a swing in that direction."</p>
<p>He isn't alone in thinking this. The Totally Football Show is not the only new football show to launch this summer — The Telegraph and The Independent have both launched ones, while popular title The Football Ramble has launched a new spin-off title about European football, On The Continent. Clearly, many people see a bright future for sports podcasts.</p>
<p>"Competition is good," Macintosh says. "It keeps everyone on their toes. The guys at Football Ramble are doing brilliant stuff. They're a great example of what can be done in this industry. They've got such great chemistry and it's really working out well for them."</p>
<h2>'We've got nothing but love for the guys at the Guardian'</h2>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/59cf427484da9522af3a338b-1338/panel1.png" alt="Totally Football Show" data-mce-source="Muddy Knees Media" data-mce-caption="The Totally Football Show being recorded.">What about those left behind at the Guardian? New host Max Rushden and his guests sounded almost shell shocked in the first new episode of this season.</p>
<p>"We've got nothing but love for the guys at the Guardian," Macintosh said magnanimously. "I think they're in a very good place."</p>
<p>Not all listeners agree. New host Rushden has drawn ire from some, who have taken to Twitter and the Guardian comments section to complain.</p>
<p>Macintosh says: "Max and Barry [Glendenning, a Guardian journalist and Football Weekly regular] are a terrific double act. Initially, the listeners will be a bit upset but, once they listen to it for a bit, they'll realise how good Max is, how good Barry is."</p>
<p>Ah, Barry — Glendenning is perhaps the only element of the Guardian's secret sauce that Muddy Knees Media failed to march away with. The sardonic Irishman is a fan favourite, with many wondering why he didn't choose to move across.</p>
<p>Did Macintosh try and tempt Glendenning over? </p>
<p>There's a pause.</p>
<p>"We love Barry. All things are open in the future but Barry has a very good job at the Guardian outside of podcasting. He's a very good writer."</p>
<p>For now, Macintosh has enough on his plate beside chasing new talent.</p>
<p>"The company has to evolve otherwise it's just me running from studio to studio and I don't think anyone wants that," he says. "I think as we progress through these chaotic first three or four months, we'll assess the situation as we go. Nothing is off the table, is the way I always work."</p>
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</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iain-macintosh-interview-totally-football-show-guardian-podcast-muddy-knees-media-2017-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vmware-ceo-pat-gelsinger-tech-superpowers-ai-mobile-cloud-iot-2018-1">VMware CEO reveals which tech will have the most impact on the world, and why Elon Musk is wrong on AI</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/democrat-ads-greg-gianforte-body-slam-reporter-ben-jacobs-2017-5Democrats are running last-minute ads in Montana featuring a GOP candidate 'body-slamming' a reporterhttp://www.businessinsider.com/democrat-ads-greg-gianforte-body-slam-reporter-ben-jacobs-2017-5
Thu, 25 May 2017 10:56:05 -0400Maxwell Tani
<p><img class="float_left float_right" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5926eec9df1bf082008b4afe-622/gettyimages-687778678.jpg" alt="Greg Gianforte" data-mce-source="Justin Sullivan/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte talks with supporters during a campaign meet and greet at Lambros Real Estate on May 24, 2017 in Missoula, Montana."></p><p>Montana Republican Greg Gianforte allegedly body-slammed a reporter the night before a special election, and Democrats are hoping to capitalize on the incident when voters head to the polls on Thursday.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs attempted to ask Gianforte about the Congressional Budget Office's report saying that the Republican healthcare plan that passed the House of Representatives would leave 23 million Americans uninsured.</p>
<p>In a move <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/24/greg-gianforte-fox-news-team-witnesses-gop-house-candidate-body-slam-reporter.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">witnessed by Fox News</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/montana-gianforte-body-slamming-reporter-audio-2017-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">captured in audio</a> by Jacobs, Gianforte reportedly grabbed Jacobs and slammed him to the ground, breaking his glasses.</p>
<p>"I'm sick and tired of you guys," Gianforte is heard saying on the audio recording. "The last time you came here you did the same thing. Get the hell out of here!"</p>
<p>Democratic groups like Priorities USA, Move On, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quickly blasted out rapid-response digital ads highlighting the incident.</p>
<p>It's unclear whether the incident will seriously affect the election for the House of Representatives seat vacated earlier this year by current Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. It's possible that two-thirds of Montana voters have already cast their ballots in early voting, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/montanas-special-election-could-give-the-gop-another-reason-to-fret/?ex_cid=538twitter">according to 538</a>. And recent polls have showed the GOP candidate leading by as little as five points and as much as 14 points.</p>
<p>The Montana contest has become the focus of national attention as Democratic enthusiasm has made traditionally safe red districts competitive. Gianforte himself admitted earlier this week that the race is "<a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/24/montana-special-election-quist-gianforte-238746">closer than it should be</a>."</p>
<p>Democratic challenger Rob Quist <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/24/montana-special-election-quist-gianforte-238746">has raised $6 million</a> for the race, a massive haul for an off-year special election in a state President Donald Trump won in November by 20 points.</p>
<h2>Watch ads from DCCC and Move On:</h2>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Wow. Here's the DCCC digital ad on Gianforte's alleged assault. <a href="https://t.co/7lQaMraS2Z">pic.twitter.com/7lQaMraS2Z</a></p>— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/867720211205681153">May 25, 2017</a>
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<p> </p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/montana-gianforte-body-slamming-reporter-audio-2017-5" >'I'm sick and tired of you guys!': Audio records GOP House candidate from Montana yelling at reporter as he 'body slams' him</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/democrat-ads-greg-gianforte-body-slam-reporter-ben-jacobs-2017-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/black-lives-matter-cofounder-on-how-to-really-make-america-great-patrisse-cullors-trayvon-martin-2018-2">How to make America great — according to one of the three cofounders of Black Lives Matter</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alaska-2016-12Climate change is wreaking havoc on indigenous people in Alaskahttp://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alaska-2016-12
Mon, 19 Dec 2016 20:43:00 -0500Oliver Milman
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/585856eeca7f0c1e058b6944-2400/undefined" alt="The Yupik, an indigenous people of western Alaska" data-mce-source="Andrew Burton/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="The Yupik, an indigenous people of western Alaska" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/479390698" /></p><p>The extreme warmth of 2016 has changed so much for the people of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/arctic" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" data-component="auto-linked-tag">Arctic</a>&nbsp;that even their language is becoming unmoored from the conditions in which they now live.</p>
<p>The Yupik, an indigenous people of western Alaska, have dozens of words for the vagaries of sea ice, which is not surprising given the crucial role it plays in subsistence hunting and transportation. But researchers have noted that some of these words, such as &ldquo;tagneghneq&rdquo; (thick, dark, weathered ice), are becoming obsolete.</p>
<p>After thousands of years of use, words are vanishing as quickly as the ice they describe due to climate change. The native inhabitants are also in peril &ndash; there are 31 Alaskan towns and cities <a href="http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-551" data-link-name="in body link">at imminent risk</a> from the melting ice and coastal erosion. Many will have to relocate or somehow adapt.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In December, we normally have waters covered in ice but right now we have open water out there,&rdquo; said Vera Metcalf, director of the <a href="http://www.kawerak.org/ewc.html#" data-link-name="in body link">Eskimo Walrus Commission</a>, which represents 19 native communities stretching along Alaska&rsquo;s western coast. &ldquo;We are so dependent upon sea ice conditions. It&rsquo;s our life, our culture.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Arctic sea ice extent slumped to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/06/arctic-antarctic-ice-melt-november-record" data-link-name="in body link">record low in November</a>, winnowed away by the warming air, warming seas and unhelpful wind patterns. The region&rsquo;s 2016 temperature has been 3.5C warmer than a century ago. In some locations the divergence from the long-term average has been an eye-watering 20C.</p>
<p>On 21 November, the decline on the long-term average of sea ice extent for that day was 888,000 sq miles (2.3m sq km) &ndash; an area 10 times larger than the UK, but smaller than the long-term average. &ldquo;Almost every year now we look at the record of sea ice and say &lsquo;wow&rsquo;, but this year it was like 'three times wow,'" said Tad Pfeffer, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado. &ldquo;This year has been a big exaggeration on the trends we&rsquo;ve already been seeing.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img class="center" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/58585769ca7f0c1c008b6acd-2400/undefined" alt="Yupik women" data-mce-source="Andrew Burton" data-mce-caption="Yupik women" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/479112714" /></p>
<p>These numbers have resonance for people who require dependable rhythms in the environment in order to survive. In remote Alaskan communities, the stores sell goods priced to reflect their journey &ndash; $20 for a pizza, $15 for a gallon of milk. If you can&rsquo;t butcher a 1,000-pound walrus because there is no sea ice to support both of you, then you might well be left hungry.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The window of opportunity for hunting continues to shrink,&rdquo; Metcalf said. &ldquo;The communities are worried about this because food insecurity is something we are now having to tackle every single day.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Metcalf grew up on St Lawrence island, a far-flung piece of the US that sits just 36 miles from Russia in the Bering Sea. The island is thought to be one of the last exposed fragments of a land bridge that connected North America to Asia during the last ice age.</p>
<p>In 2013, the island&rsquo;s two main communities <a href="https://www.adn.com/rural-alaska/article/disaster-declared-subsistence-walrus-hunt-st-lawrence-island/2013/09/03/" data-link-name="in body link">managed to catch</a> just a third of the walruses they normally do. Last year, Gambell, the largest settlement, <a href="https://www.adn.com/rural-alaska/article/remote-gambell-regrouping-after-three-years-low-walrus-hunts/2015/07/09/" data-link-name="in body link">snared</a> just 36 &ndash; down from the 600 it could expect just a few years ago.</p>
<p>Sea ice is further out from land than it once was and is becoming treacherously thin for hunters to traverse. Walruses, which require sea ice for resting and giving birth, often have to resort to heaving themselves on to crowded strips of land. These grand tusked beasts can trample each other to death in such conditions.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like the walrus populations are changing, it&rsquo;s that the climate is changing the conditions,&rdquo; Metcalf said. &ldquo;We are trying to plan better but we can&rsquo;t go out every day and hunt. We can try to adapt and hunt caribou or moose but it&rsquo;s not easy. It comes at a cost to us.&rdquo;</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/585857d8ca7f0ccb018b6a39-2400/undefined" alt="Rising seas and warming temperature force Alaskan coastal community to move inland" data-mce-source="Andrew Burton/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="Rising seas and warming temperature force Alaskan coastal community to move inland" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/479842256" /></p>
<p>The Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world and there are &ldquo;early signs&rdquo; that this temperature increase is speeding up, according to Jeremy Mathis, director of the Arctic program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Mathis moved to Fairbanks, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/alaska" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" data-component="auto-linked-tag">Alaska</a>, in 2007 and even in that time he has seen startling changes &ndash; the -40C winters he endured in the first few years have almost completely disappeared.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For people who live in the Arctic, there is no debate over whether their environment is changing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We are seeing a destabilization of the environment in the Arctic. The ice is melting earlier and earlier and coming back later and later in the year. For people here that means a clear impact upon food security and their way of life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Frost locked deep in the soils is melting, causing buildings to subside. Communities are seeing their coastlines erode and are increasingly exposed to lashing storms without the protective barrier of sea ice.</p>
<p>Several Alaskan towns and villages are wrestling over whether to fight these changes or retreat to relative safety. Two coastal villages, Shishmaref and Kivalina, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/18/alaska-shishmaref-vote-move-coastal-erosion-rising-sea-levels" data-link-name="in body link">have voted</a> to relocate while a third, Newtok, has taken the first tentative steps to do so.</p>
<p>The warmth of 2016 &ndash; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/18/2016-locked-into-being-hottest-year-on-record-nasa-says" data-link-name="in body link">almost certain to be a global record</a> &ndash; has added to the sense of haste. The regrowth of sea ice as Alaska enters winter has been so painfully slow that many communities will be left without a buffer to storms next year. Should a large storm hit, it could prove disastrous.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/58585806ca7f0cdf1e8b676f-2400/undefined" alt="The Yupik people" data-mce-source="Andrew Burton/Getty Images" data-mce-caption="The Yupik people" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/479390564" /></p>
<p>Such a calamity would at least free up money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). The cost of relocating a village of just a few hundred people is around $200m &ndash; a bill that neither the federal nor Alaskan government is keen to pick up. Some people in remote communities note, darkly, that a ruinous storm would at least be followed by federal dollars that would allow them to fortify or move.</p>
<p>&ldquo;These communities need to be moved as soon as possible before a large storm hits,&rdquo; said Victoria Herrmann, managing director of the <a href="http://www.thearcticinstitute.org/" data-link-name="in body link">Arctic Institute</a>. &ldquo;There hasn&rsquo;t been much guidance as to whether they can move or who will pay for it. There are around 230 villages affected by sea level rise and they will all need a plan over the next few years as sea ice continues to retreat.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It takes a certain stoic hardiness to live in a place of such frigid cold. But Herrmann said that even those who have had to adapt to changes in the past have found the unravelling of 2016 &ldquo;very scary&rdquo;. She added: &ldquo;What we are seeing is incredible. It&rsquo;s quite frightening in terms of what it means for the future.&rdquo;</p>
<p>A solution doesn&rsquo;t appear imminent. The US has no national sea level rise plan, no system to deal with displaced people. Even as the country&rsquo;s first climate change refugees emerge from within its own borders, the issue is very much on the sidelines. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/12/donald-trump-environment-climate-change-skeptics" data-link-name="in body link">The incoming president</a> isn&rsquo;t sure what the fuss is about, vacillating between calling climate change a &ldquo;hoax&rdquo; concocted by the Chinese or simply claiming that &ldquo;nobody really knows&rdquo; if it exists.</p>
<p>While the politics plays out, wrenching decisions will have to be made.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Having to move elsewhere is unimaginable,&rdquo; said Metcalf. &ldquo;As an elder told me the other day, we are not going anywhere. We&rsquo;ve been here for centuries. But we may have to consider it, for the sake of our children and grandchildren.&rdquo;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-island-nations-could-be-underwater-in-as-little-as-fifty-years-2015-12" >These island nations could be underwater in as little as 50 years</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/marshallese-climate-refugees-head-to-arkansas-2016-2" >Thousands of 'climate refugees' could soon be heading to this Middle America town</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alaska-2016-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bud-light-dilly-dilly-viral-commercial-super-bowl-campaign-2017-12">What 'Dilly Dilly' means — and how Bud Light came up with its viral campaign</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/simon-jenkins-says-he-feels-discriminated-against-like-a-black-person-30-years-ago-2016-12Simon Jenkins says he feels discriminated against 'like a black person 30 years ago'http://www.businessinsider.com/simon-jenkins-says-he-feels-discriminated-against-like-a-black-person-30-years-ago-2016-12
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 14:21:43 -0500Adam Bienkov
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5852ee64dd0895b7548b4c3e-2400/undefined" alt="Simon Jenkins" data-mce-source="Chris Jackson / Getty" data-mce-caption="Simon Jenkins feels like black person 30 years ago"></p><p>Guardian columnist Sir Simon Jenkins is discriminated against like a black person would have been 30 years ago, he claimed today.</p>
<p>Speaking about his latest controversial <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/15/pale-stale-males-blamed-brexit-trump">column</a>: “Pale, stale males are the last group it’s OK to vilify,” Jenkins claimed that black women were now being given an unfair advantage over people such as himself.</p>
<p>“If you’re looking at being selected for NGOs and important jobs and so on, the best thing you can possibly be at the moment is a black woman,” he told Talk Radio’s Sam Delaney.<br><br>“You just slide into it. I’ve got experience of this.”</p>
<p>Jenkins, who is the former chairman of the National Trust and editor of the Times, said older, more experienced people were being “eased out” of senior positions, “in my case of the commentariat.”</p>
<p>He added: “I do sometimes feel a bit like it must have been like to be a black person 20 or 30 years ago.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/simon-jenkins-says-he-feels-discriminated-against-like-a-black-person-30-years-ago-2016-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/black-lives-matter-cofounder-on-how-to-really-make-america-great-patrisse-cullors-trayvon-martin-2018-2">How to make America great — according to one of the three cofounders of Black Lives Matter</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/smoking-occasionally-permanent-damage-cells-2016-11Even occasional smoking may cause permanent, irreversible damage to your cellshttp://www.businessinsider.com/smoking-occasionally-permanent-damage-cells-2016-11
Fri, 04 Nov 2016 09:19:00 -0400Ian Sample
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/581c894f691e8820038b495f-2121/gettyimages-490741257.jpg" alt="people smoking" data-mce-source="Scott Barbour/Getty Images" /></p><p>The devastating impact of cigarette smoke on the body&rsquo;s DNA has been laid bare by the first comprehensive study into the damage tobacco inflicts on human cells.</p>
<p>People who smoke a pack of cigarettes each day for a year develop on average 150 extra mutations in every lung cell, and nearly 100 more mutations than usual in each cell of the voice box, researchers found. More still build up in the mouth, bladder, liver and other organs.</p>
<p>While chemicals in tobacco smoke have long been known to raise the risk of at least 17 forms of cancer, the precise molecular mechanisms through which they mutate DNA and give rise to tumors in different tissues have never been clear.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is about running down the root cause of cancers,&rdquo; said David Phillips, a professor of environmental carcinogenesis at King&rsquo;s College London and a co-author on the study. &ldquo;By identifying the root causes, we gain the sort of knowledge we need to think more seriously about cancer prevention.&rdquo;</p>
<p>More than 70 of the 7,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer. Some damage DNA directly, but others ramp up mutations in more subtle ways, often by disrupting the way cells function. The more mutations a cell acquires, the more likely it is to turn cancerous.</p>
<p>The reason why some people can smoke for years without getting cancer, while others develop the disease, is down to the way mutations arise. When a person smokes, the chemicals they inhale create mutations at random points in the genome. Many of these changes will be harmless, but others not so benign. The more smoke a person is exposed to, the greater the chance that the accumulating mutations will hit specific spots in the DNA that turn cells cancerous.</p>
<aside data-component="rich-link" data-link-name="rich-link-1 | 1">
<div>
<h1><a>Do lung cancer scans deter smokers from giving up?</a></h1>
</div>
<div>
<div><span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2015/sep/08/smoking-lung-cancer-scans-screening"></a></aside>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/579fbc05dd0895f33d8b48d7-2400/cigarette-cigarettes-smoking-gettyimages-476551310.jpg" alt="cigarette cigarettes smoking GettyImages 476551310" data-mce-source="Getty Images" />&ldquo;You can really think of it as playing Russian roulette,&rdquo; said Ludmil Alexandrov, a theoretical biologist at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico and the first author of the study. &ldquo;You can miss the right genes. But if you smoke you still play the game. It&rsquo;s a very strong message for people not to start smoking. If you smoke even a little bit you&rsquo;ll erode the genetic material of most of the cells in your body.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/smoking" data-link-name="auto-linked-tag" data-component="auto-linked-tag">Smoking</a> is the most preventable cause of cancer in the world and accounts for more than 1 in 4 UK cancer deaths.</p>
<p>With researchers at the Wellcome Trust&rsquo;s Sanger Institute near Cambridge and others, Alexandrov analyzed the DNA of more than 5,000 cancers. The team then turned to pattern recognition software to tease apart the various mutational signatures found in tumors from smokers versus non-smokers. To find the signatures - the patterns of mutations present in cancer cells - researchers performed the genetic equivalent of recording the chatter at a party and then extracting individual conversations from the hubbub.</p>
<p>The scientists spotted more than 20 mutational signatures in 13 types of cancer linked to tobacco smoking. But only five of these were more common in smokers&rsquo; tumors. One pattern of mutations, dubbed signature four, was found to be a major driver for lung cancer. It is thought to be caused by benzopyrene, a chemical found in tobacco smoke.</p>
<p>More intriguing was how tobacco caused mutations in tissues that are not directly exposed to smoke, such as the bladder, kidneys and pancreas. The study found that chemicals from tobacco smoke found their way to different organs and tissues and then sped up the molecular clocks in the cells. This ramped up the natural rate at which mutations built up in the tissues.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We knew there was direct damage from smoking in the lungs. What we didn&rsquo;t expect was to see smoking speed up the molecular clocks inside cells,&rdquo; said Alexandrov, whose study appears in the journal <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aag0299" data-link-name="in body link">Science</a>. &ldquo;In bladder cancer, the only thing that causes the extra mutations in smokers is the speeding up of the clock, and that will be very dependent on the intensity of smoking. For every pack of cigarettes you smoke per year, you accumulate 18 mutations in all of your bladder cells,&rdquo; he added.</p>
<p>Scientists hope that by understanding how the individual ingredients of tobacco smoke raise the risk of various cancers, they can develop new ways to prevent the disease. The same techniques used in the latest study will now be used to tease apart how alcohol, obesity and other factors also increase a person&rsquo;s cancer risk.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is a message here for people who are occasional or social smokers who think it doesn&rsquo;t do anything,&rdquo; said Alexandrov. &ldquo;If you smoke four to five packs of cigarettes in your lifetime it doesn&rsquo;t sound that much, but you still get several mutations in every cell in your lungs and these are permanent, they do not go away. There are a lot of things that do revert back when you stop smoking, and this shouldn&rsquo;t discourage people from giving up, but the specific mutations in the lung cells are like scars. If you stop smoking, they&rsquo;ll still be there.&rdquo;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-addictive-substances-2016-5" >The most 'addictive' drugs probably aren't the ones you think</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>DON'T MISS:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maia-szalavitz-unbroken-brain-treating-addiction-as-a-learning-disorder-2016-4" >The answer to treating drug and alcohol addiction may be far simpler than you think</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/smoking-occasionally-permanent-damage-cells-2016-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/suki-kim-north-korea-sent-hundreds-cheerleaders-olympics-2018-2">Why North Korea sent hundreds of cheerleaders to the Olympics</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/exxonmobil-bans-the-guardian-from-annual-general-meeting-2016-5Exxon banned The Guardian from its shareholder meeting due to its 'lack of objectivity on climate change'http://www.businessinsider.com/exxonmobil-bans-the-guardian-from-annual-general-meeting-2016-5
Thu, 26 May 2016 10:45:30 -0400Will Martin
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57470c1cdd0895f57a8b486f-1275-956/screen shot 2015-02-01 at 10.09.56 am.png" alt="exxonmobil refinery oil" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi " data-mce-caption="A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas September 15, 2008." /></p><p>The Guardian was banned from attending the annual general meeting of the world's largest publicly traded oil producer, Exxon Mobil. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2016/may/25/guardian-banned-from-exxon-agm-for-lack-of-objectivity-on-climate-change?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail">The company cited a "lack of objectivity" from the news organisation in its reporting on climate change as the reason for the ban</a>, according to a post by finance editor, Nils Pratley.</p>
<p>Exxon's media relations manager Alan Jeffers, said that the paper's partnership with anti-oil and gas activists means it can't be objective on climate change related issues:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">We are denying your request [to attend Wednesday&rsquo;s meeting] because of the Guardian&rsquo;s lack of objectivity on climate change reporting demonstrated by its partnership with anti-oil and gas activists and its campaign against companies that provide energy necessary for modern life, including newspapers.</p>
<p>The Guardian has partnerships with several environmental groups for its "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/05/a-story-of-hope-the-guardian-launches-phase-two-of-its-climate-change-campaign">Keep it in the ground" campaign</a>, which advocates moving away from fossil fuels and instead using clean energy sources such as solar and wind power.</p>
<p>Exxon isn't that objective when it comes to climate change, either. Famously, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/15/exxon-mobil-gave-millions-climate-denying-lawmakers">the company gave $30 million to "researchers" and campaign groups who deny climate change</a>, spread over&nbsp;several years. Exxon said it stopped that funding in 2007, but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/15/exxon-mobil-gave-millions-climate-denying-lawmakers">The Guardian reported last year</a> that it has given&nbsp;more than $2.3 million to members of the US Congress and a lobbying group, who deny climate change.&nbsp;</p>
<p>At Wednesday's AGM, <a href="http://ir.exxonmobil.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=115024&amp;p=irol-EventDetails&amp;EventId=5223785">chief executive Rex Tillerson said</a> that until green technologies could match the capacity of traditional fuel sources the "world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not."</p>
<p>Tillerson stressed that Exxon has invested more than $7 billion in green tech, but that it has yet to achieve breakthroughs that let green energy sources compete with fossil fuels. &ldquo;Until we have those [breakthroughs], just saying &lsquo;turn the taps off&rsquo; is not acceptable to humanity,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>The AGM took place on Wednesday morning (9:30 a.m. CT; 3:30 p.m. BST) in Dallas, Texas. ExxonMobil shareholders rejected a climate change policy that included limiting global warming, putting a climate expert on the company's board, and reporting on the potential impacts of fracking. Thirty-eight percent of shareholders voted for the proposal.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/exxonmobil-bans-the-guardian-from-annual-general-meeting-2016-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rogoff-next-financial-crisis-cryptocurrencies-bitcoin-2018-1">Ken Rogoff on the next financial crisis and the future of bitcoin</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-tech-staffer-with-links-to-edward-snowden-lost-his-security-clearance-2016-1A White House tech expert with links to Edward Snowden just lost his security clearancehttp://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-tech-staffer-with-links-to-edward-snowden-lost-his-security-clearance-2016-1
Fri, 29 Jan 2016 22:42:07 -0500Danny Yadron
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/56ac305ec08a80d7118bdd13-2768-2076/ap260618956984.jpg" alt="Edward Snowden Moscow" data-mce-source="AP" data-mce-caption="A screenshot of Rossia 24 TV channel shows Edward Snowden on a boat trip in Moscow in September." /></p><p>The White House has denied a security clearance to a member of its technology team who previously helped report on documents leaked by Edward Snowden.</p>
<p>Ashkan Soltani, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and recent staffer at the Federal Trade Commission, recently began working with the White House on privacy, data ethics and technical outreach.</p>
<p>The partnership raised eyebrows when it was announced in December because of Soltani&rsquo;s previous work with the Washington Post, where he helped analyze and protect a cache of National Security Agency documents leaked by Snowden.</p>
<p>His departure raises questions about the US government&rsquo;s ability to partner with the broader tech community, where people come from a more diverse background than traditional government staffers.</p>
<p>It also suggests that nearly three years later, the Snowden episode remains a highly charged issue inside the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Recently some current and former administration officials said the former NSA contractor sparked a &ldquo;necessary debate&rdquo; on surveillance, even if they disagreed with his tactics.</p>
<p>It remains unclear exactly why the White House parted ways with Soltani.</p>
<p>In December, Megan Smith, White House chief technology officer and a former Google executive, welcomed him to her team with an effusive post on Twitter that referenced Soltani&rsquo;s account handle, @Ashk4n.</p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Excited to welcome our extraordinary colleague <a href="https://twitter.com/ashk4n">@Ashk4n</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/whitehouseostp">@whitehouseOSTP</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechiesInGov?src=hash">#TechiesInGov</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Data?src=hash">#Data</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Privacy?src=hash">#Privacy</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Innovation?src=hash">#Innovation</a> <a href="https://t.co/iPiD9XM89r">pic.twitter.com/iPiD9XM89r</a></p>
&mdash; Megan Smith (@USCTO) <a href="https://twitter.com/USCTO/status/677229095902691328">December 16, 2015</a></blockquote>
<p>Soltani since then has been on loan from the FTC to the White House. He was in the process of getting approved for a clearance to work in one of America&rsquo;s most secured office buildings. Soltani said he passed his drug test and the Federal Bureau of Investigation hadn&rsquo;t yet finished his background check, meaning it would have been too early for the bureau to weigh in on his employment.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is something that happens from time to time, and I won&rsquo;t speculate on the reasons,&rdquo; Soltani said in a statement provided to the Guardian. &ldquo;I am proud of my work, I passed the mandatory drug screening some time ago and the FBI background check was still underway. There was also no allegation that it was based on my integrity or the quality of my work.&rdquo;</p>
<p>A White House official said: &ldquo;Ashkan Soltani was on a detail to the Office of Science and Technology Policy from the Federal Trade Commission, and his detail has ended.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he wouldn&rsquo;t speculate on why Soltani was being denied a job, though he did note that he published many stories that likely irked America&rsquo;s intelligence officials.</p>
<p>&ldquo;My guess is there are people who are never going to forgive him for that,&rdquo; said Soghoian, who lauded Soltani&rsquo;s technical acumen.</p>
<p>&ldquo;At a time when the government can&rsquo;t get cybersecurity right they deeply need people like Ashkan in the White House,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>The move is a blow for Smith, the White House CTO, who has spent the past year trying to lure more pure-blood technologists to government. It can be a tough sell. Compared to Silicon Valley, the pay is less, the hours are longer and the cafeteria isn&rsquo;t free.</p>
<p>Soltani, 41 years old, has been drawn to working on public policy issues since spending years as a private security researcher. In addition to the Post, he has worked with the New York Times, the University of California Berkeley and the Wall Street Journal. In October of 2014 he joined the FTC as its chief technologist, where he worked on consumer protection issues.</p>
<p>He, along with his Post colleagues and the Guardian, won a Pulitzer prize in 2014 for their coverage of the Snowden affair.</p>
<p>So like many techies before him, Soltani said he now likely will leave Washington.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m definitely ready to go back to the west coast for a bit,&rdquo; said Soltani, an avid mountain biker. &ldquo;I just wish I hadn&rsquo;t spent all my money on suits instead of bike parts.&rdquo;</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p>This article was written by Danny Yadron in San Francisco from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.<img class="nc_pixel" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/imageundefined" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p>
<!-- Newscred Content Analytics: 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 --><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-tech-staffer-with-links-to-edward-snowden-lost-his-security-clearance-2016-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vince-stephanie-shane-mcmahon-wwe-successor-triple-h-jim-ross-wrestling-2018-1">JIM ROSS: Here's who will take over WWE after Vince McMahon</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/next-year-could-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-globally-2015-122016 is set to be the hottest year on record globallyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/next-year-could-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-globally-2015-12
Thu, 17 Dec 2015 16:02:10 -0500Damian Carrington
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5671aa4272f2c18b108b60dd-2000-1500/rtx1mc4c.jpg" alt="heat wave" data-mce-source="Reuters/Eduardo Munoz" data-mce-caption="A woman covers herself from the sun with a blue hat during a hot summer day in New York." /></p><p>2016 is set to be the warmest year ever recorded, according to a <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2015/global-temperature">forecast issued by the UK Met Office</a> on Thursday.</p>
<p>Climate change and the peaking of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/elnino">El Ni&ntilde;o</a> weather phenomenon are expected to drive the global average temperature next year above the record now certain to be set for 2015, which itself beat a new record set in 2014.</p>
<p>The forecast comes just five days after 195 nations agreed a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/paris-climate-deal-200-nations-sign-finish-fossil-fuel-era">historic deal to fight global warming</a> at a UN summit in Paris by keeping the world&rsquo;s temperature rise under 2C, with an ambition to restrict the rise to 1.5C.</p>
<p>The Met Office forecast indicates the global average temperature in 2016 will be 1.14C above pre-industrial temperatures, showing how challenging it will be to meet the 1.5C goal. The Met Office said there was just a 5% chance the global average temperature in 2016 would be below that in 2015.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The vast majority of the warming is global warming, but the icing on the cake is the big El Ni&ntilde;o event,&rdquo; said Prof Adam Scaife, head of monthly to decadal prediction at the Met Office.</p>
<p>El Ni&ntilde;o is a natural cycle of warming in the Pacific Ocean which has a global impact on weather. The current episode is the biggest since 1998 and is peaking now, but the global temperature effects take time to spread around the globe. &ldquo;We expect the peak warming from El Ni&ntilde;o in the 2016 figures,&rdquo; said Scaife.</p>
<p>Rising temperatures driven by global warming combined with natural variability leads to a greater chance of extreme weather events, he said: &ldquo;When variability adds to the underlying warming, it can give impacts that have never been seen before.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Heatwaves have scorched China, Russia, Australia, the Middle East and parts of South America in the last two years. The recent floods in the northwest of England are estimated to have been made <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/11/storm-desmond-rainfall-flooding-partly-due-to-climate-change-scientists-conclude">40% more likely by climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Despite rising greenhouse gas emissions trapping ever more heat on Earth, the last decade has seen relatively slow warming of air temperatures, dubbed a &ldquo;pause&rdquo; in climate change by some.</p>
<p>In fact, global warming had not paused at all. Instead, natural climate cycles led to more of the trapped heat being stored in the oceans. Now, according to the Met Office, all the signs are that the period of slower rises in air temperatures is over and the rate of global warming will accelerate fast in coming years. 2014 was the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/09/worlds-climate-about-to-enter-uncharted-territory-as-it-passes-1c-of-warming">first year the world passed 1C of warming</a> above pre-industrial levels.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53b257026bb3f7e577037bc5-1200-611/el-nino.jpg" alt="el nino" data-mce-source="NOAA" /></p>
<p>The temperature trend caused by climate change will continue to be upwards unless carbon emissions begin to fall. However, the Met Office does not expect the run of back-to-back records from 2014-16 to continue indefinitely, as El Ni&ntilde;o is expected to wane during 2016.</p>
<p>&ldquo;But the current situation shows how global warming can combine with smaller, natural fluctuations to push our climate to levels of warmth which are unprecedented in the data records,&rdquo; said a Met Office statement.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is yet more evidence that the world is warming fast. We&rsquo;ll see far more savage storms and floods in places like Cumbria and Chennai if governments do not act to cut carbon pollution,&rdquo; said Simon Bullock at Friends of the Earth.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The Paris agreement was crystal-clear that urgent measures are needed now, yet David Cameron&rsquo;s government has reacted by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/17/uk-solar-panel-subsidies-slashed-paris-climate-change">stamping on the solar industry</a>, while <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/16/fracking-under-national-parks-approved-by-mps-amid-acrimony">championing fracking</a>. This morally bankrupt response is the exact opposite of what is needed.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: &ldquo;Global mean surface temperature continues to rise. This means governments must act strongly and urgently to cut emissions of greenhouse gases if there is to be any chance of keeping future warming to well below 2C, as laid out in the Paris agreement.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He added: &ldquo;This projection is another fatal blow to claims by climate change &lsquo;sceptics&rsquo; that global warming has stopped or stalled.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Met Office forecast for 2016 predicts a global average temperature of 1.14C above pre-industrial levels, with a 95% likelihood of being between 1.02C and 1.26C. 2015 is expected to be about 1C warmer.</p>
<p><em>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></em></p>
<!-- Newscred Content Analytics: 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 --><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-that-will-survive-climate-change-infographic-2015-6" >The countries most likely to survive climate change in one infographic</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>CHECK OUT:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-melting-glaciers-blamed-for-subtle-slowing-of-earths-rotation-2015-12" >Here's an impact of climate change that we never saw coming</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/next-year-could-be-the-hottest-year-on-record-globally-2015-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/states-likely-have-white-christmas-noaa-weather-snow-prediction-2015-12">These are the states most likely to get snow on Christmas</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/mrsa-treatment-could-be-transformed-by-new-precision-drug-therapy-2015-11A radical new drug therapy could clear up ‘superbug’ infectionshttp://www.businessinsider.com/mrsa-treatment-could-be-transformed-by-new-precision-drug-therapy-2015-11
Wed, 04 Nov 2015 16:47:16 -0500Ian Sample
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/563a7b48bd86effb5b8bc36d-2308-1731/scanning_electron_micrograph_of_methicillin-resistant_staphylococcus_aureus_(mrsa)_and_a_dead_human_neutrophil_-_niaid.jpg" alt="Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)" data-mce-source="Wikipedia Commons" data-mce-caption="Scanning electron micrograph of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and a dead human neutrophil" /></p><p>A precision drug therapy that wipes out bugs that hide in the body could help clear up persistent infections that do not respond to standard antibiotics.</p>
<p>The treatment works by tagging antibiotics onto antibodies which home in on pathogens and deliver a lethal dose of drug directly to the heart of the infected tissues.</p>
<p>The strategy could transform the treatment of patients with recurring bacterial infections, such as the hospital superbug MRSA, which can be extremely hard to treat even with powerful antibiotics.</p>
<p>The approach also raises hopes for treating relapses in tuberculosis patients, and chronic infections that can take hold after heart surgery.</p>
<p>Tests in animals showed that the radical combination, called an antibody-antibiotic conjugate (AAC), was far more effective at clearing up <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> infections than the frontline antibiotic, vancomycin.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is about clearing infections more completely,&rdquo; said Sanjeev Mariathasan, an immunologist who led the work at Genentech in San Francisco.</p>
<p>Wolf-Dietrich Hardt, a microbiologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, who was not involved in the study, said the strategy could slow the emergence of antibiotic resistance because only the targeted bacteria are exposed to the drug, and reduce the harm that antibiotics inflict on healthy microbes that live in the gut.</p>
<p>In April, a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/apr/06/drug-resistant-disease-could-kill-80000-single-uk-outbreak-report-warns" class=" u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link">government forecast</a> warned that 80,000 people could be killed by an outbreak of drug-resistant infections in Britain.</p>
<p>While some <em>Staphylococcus aureus</em> infections are hard to treat because the bugs are drug-resistant, others are tough to clear because the bugs appear to take cover inside cells in the body. Many drugs cannot get into the cells, or do not work once they get there.</p>
<p>To tackle the hiding pathogens, Mariathasan&rsquo;s team took antibodies that recognise all strains of&nbsp;<em>Staphylococcus aureus</em>, and hooked them up via a chemical bridge to powerful antibiotics, similar to the drug rifampicin. The bridge was designed to break when it comes into contact with enzymes that bugs encounter when they infect cells. This way the drug is only released, and only effective, when the bugs try to run for cover.</p>
<p>In tests reported in the journal <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature16057" class=" u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" data-component="in-body-link">Nature</a>, Mariathasan showed that injections of the antibody-drug combination into infected mice wiped out Staphylococcus aureus infections far more effectively than antibiotics alone. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d love to now test this in humans,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>In an accompanying article in Nature, Hardt writes that the strategy was &ldquo;strikingly more potent&rdquo; than standard drugs.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Compared with conventional antibiotic therapy, the prodrug approach is likely to reduce both the emergence of antibiotic resistance (by reducing the exposure of other bacteria to the active drug), and the disruption of the body&rsquo;s normal communities of microorganisms,&rdquo; he notes.</p>
<p>The use of antibodies to deliver antibiotics directly to specific infectious bugs has also raised hopes that promising antibiotics that never made it to market because they are too toxic or not potent enough in the body, could be resurrected.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We have so many active drugs against Staph out there, but they never see the light of day because they don&rsquo;t have all the properties a drug needs,&rdquo; Mariathasan said. &ldquo;You might need to dose high, and that causes toxicity, so they kill bugs superbly, but they also cause damage to the host&rsquo;s cells. This way you can put in 1/100th of that molecule and target it to the sites of infection. It&rsquo;s another way to repurpose some of these previously shelved antibiotics.&rdquo;</p>
<p><em>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></em></p>
<!-- Newscred Content Analytics: 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 --><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/diseases-that-are-almost-eliminated-2015-10" >7 deadly diseases we are on the cusp of eliminating</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>CHECK OUT:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ebola-survivor-health-issues-bizarre-2015" >Something bizarre is happening to Ebola survivors that doctors are struggling to explain</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mrsa-treatment-could-be-transformed-by-new-precision-drug-therapy-2015-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-nye-science-guy-one-fact-mind-blowing-2015-10">Bill Nye: This scientific fact blows my mind</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-traumatic-brain-disease-2015-9There's a traumatic brain disease rocking the football world and affecting 87 out of 91 former NFL playershttp://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-traumatic-brain-disease-2015-9
Fri, 18 Sep 2015 15:12:30 -0400Les Carpenter
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55fc606a9dd7cc22008bb73d-809-607/9662277051_be3d6bf6e4_b.jpg" alt="football sports" data-mce-source="COD Newsroom / Flickr" /></p><p>Once the fallout from Deflategate dies down the NFL will have to again face the issue of head trauma in its players.</p>
<p>On Friday another reminder of just how significant repeated blows to the head are to the long-term health of players came in a concerning report published by PBS&rsquo;s Frontline.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/concussion-watch/new-87-deceased-nfl-players-test-positive-for-brain-disease/">report</a>, conducted by Boston University and Department of Veterans Affairs researchers and released on Friday, said that 87 of 91 former NFL players examined tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. The degenerative condition, which has been linked to early onset Alzheimer&rsquo;s and dementia, is often considered a factor in the mental deterioration of former players.</p>
<p>&ldquo;People think that we&rsquo;re blowing this out of proportion, that this is a very rare disease and that we&rsquo;re sensationalizing it,&rdquo; Ann McKee, who runs a BU lab dedicated to the study of CTE, told Frontline. &ldquo;My response is that where I sit, this is a very real disease. We have had no problem identifying it in hundreds of players.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The biggest obstacle to being able to diagnose and study CTE is that the doctors need to examine players&rsquo; brains and the only way this can happen is for the player to be dead. Statistics might also be skewed because often the only relatives of deceased players willing to share their loved one&rsquo;s brains are those who saw the player&rsquo;s behavior grow erratic and were searching for an explanation.</p>
<p>CTE is going to gain increased attention with the release of a movie based on the life of Pittsburgh-area pathologist Bennet Omalu, who discovered the link between CTE and football players while examining the body of former Steelers center Mike Webster more than 10 years ago.</p>
<p>At the time, doctors focused on the effects of multiple concussions and suggested that numerous concussions were the direct cause of CTE. In recent years, the focus of their research has gone away from actual concussions and more to effects of constant head-against-head contact &mdash; something faced most by offensive and defensive linemen.</p>
<p>The NFL continues to say it is working to reduce head trauma and points to statistics that show a decrease in concussions of 35%, according to the Frontline report. Those figures don&rsquo;t reflect the unreported concussions &mdash; those where a player feels woozy but refuses to tell the trainers &mdash; or the linemen who might not be concussed but are constantly smacking helmets against each other.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-wr-retires-at-24-after-concussion-2015-9" >A 24-year-old NFL rookie retires after concussion</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nfl-traumatic-brain-disease-2015-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/concussion-trailer-will-smith-nfl-brain-injuries-2015-8">A new Will Smith movie on concussions looks as if it will be bad for the NFL</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/assad-faces-military-setbacks-in-syria-2015-8Syria is approaching a de facto breakup of the countryhttp://www.businessinsider.com/assad-faces-military-setbacks-in-syria-2015-8
Tue, 04 Aug 2015 08:10:56 -0400Kareem Shaheen
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55c0a9232acae7c7018bca8a-734-550/assad-under-pressure-may-need-his-friends-more-than-ever.jpg" alt="President Bashar al-Assad addresses his supporters at a school in an undisclosed location during an event to commemorate Syria's Martyrs' Day May 6, 2015 in this handout provided by SANA. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters " data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="President Bashar al-Assad addresses his supporters at a school in an undisclosed location during an event to commemorate Syria's Martyrs' Day " /></p><p>The growing anarchy and stalemate in Syria has brought the country closer to de facto partition, as the overstretched and exhausted army of the president, Bashar al-Assad, retreats in the face of a war of attrition that has sapped its manpower.</p>
<p>The regime&rsquo;s military has sought to retain a footprint in far-flung areas of the country, from Deir Ezzor in Syria&rsquo;s eastern desert to Aleppo in the north and Deraa in the south, attempting to consolidate its hold over state institutions and protect its officer corps by retreating in the face of overwhelming offensives and subjecting lost territory to relentless and indiscriminate aerial campaigns.</p>
<p>But, facing a manpower shortage as tens of thousands of young men desert, the military has had to rely largely on local militias as enforcers for the regime. It is ceding territory to rebel fighters and the terror group Islamic State in favour of regrouping in its strongholds to the west, slowly paving the way for partition.</p>
<p>The assertive Islamism of some of the most powerful rebel groups has ensured that a military solution to the four-year conflict &ndash; which has claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives &ndash; is all but impossible in an increasingly fractious and complex battlefield.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/26/syrian-president-public-speech-bashar-al-assad">In an unusually frank assessment</a> in late July, Assad effectively ceded control of large tracts of the country by admitting that regime troops were overstretched and could not be present in all areas of Syria. Nevertheless, he pledged to continue waging the war.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When we want to concentrate our forces in an important area &hellip; this sometimes comes at a cost to another area which is weakened, and at times we have to abandon those areas in order to move forces to the area we want to hold,&rdquo; Assad said in a televised address. He also admitted that the Syrian army is facing a manpower shortage.</p>
<p>It is a wildly complicated battlefield, where clear frontlines remain largely elusive more than four years into the rebellion. Rebel advances belie the nuances of a brutal war where the government remains in control of major population centres and has preserved the institutions of state and its officer corps.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55c0a8f32acae716008bcc88-3300-2200/rtx1mocy.jpg" alt="aleppo al-shaar syria bomb damaged building damage balcony destroy" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail" data-mce-caption="Residents sit on a couch on a balcony of a damaged building in Aleppo's al-Shaar neighboirhood, Syria, August 1, 2015." />Though it has lost substantial territory recently, including almost all of the province of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/27/syrian-rebels-hail-fall-of-jisr-al-shughour-as-sign-of-growing-strength">Idlib</a> in the north and the historic city of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/20/syrian-city-of-palmyra-falls-under-control-of-isis">Palmyra</a>, the regime has held on to strategic military bases including the airport in Deir Ezzor, the T4 base in eastern Homs and the Tha&rsquo;ala base in the south, near Deraa.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There was a practical calculation in Palmyra,&rdquo; said Kheder Khaddour, a Syrian expert with the Carnegie Middle East Center who has studied state institutions and their activities during the war. &ldquo;There was no real confrontation with Daesh [Isis], and they preferred to withdraw in the face of a powerful offensive as they don&rsquo;t want to lose army officers.&rdquo;<br /> <br /> Withdrawals likely preserved the lives of hundreds of officers, allowing them to regroup closer to the regime&rsquo;s western heartland, where it controls major population centres like Hama, Homs, Damascus and Latakia.</p>
<p>In Aleppo, the rebels and their backers fear the total collapse of services in the city and worry about governing the millions of civilians still living in the government-held areas under what is likely to be a vengeful and brutal aerial campaign. In Deraa, their offensive is complicated by the need to decide on the future place of the Druze community in Suweida in southern Syria, who fear the ascent of jihadi groups like the al-Nusra Front &ndash; who see them as heretics &ndash; a concern shared by other minorities.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5521067b5afbd3d12d8b4567-800-562/syria-talks-in-moscow-to-focus-on-humanitarian-issues-2015-4.jpg" alt="A boy carries two children as he evacuates them from a site hit by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's al-Fardous district April 2, 2015. REUTERS/Rami Zayat" data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="A boy carries two children as he evacuates them from a site hit by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's al-Fardous district " />In areas where Assad&rsquo;s troops have fled, the regime launched relentless barrel bombing campaigns aimed at making life unbearable for civilians under rebel control and preventing the opposition from providing services that the state would normally offer, prompting civilians to flee to regime-held areas. The fractiousness of the opposition, which has struggled to manage its new territory, also hints at the challenges that lie ahead for the rebels.<br /> <br /> &ldquo;People are fleeing to the places where the bombing is originating,&rdquo; said Khaddour. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s clearer for people because there is a state. The regime is a source of violence, but people go there to avoid the violence.&rdquo;<br /> <br /> But the manpower shortage remains the Assad regime&rsquo;s achilles heel &ndash; it could never really defeat the country&rsquo;s demographics, maintaining Alawite rule over an overwhelmingly Sunni populace, and it has faced significant challenges mobilising foot soldiers to fight its war. The regime has tried to lure back deserters by issuing a general amnesty a day before Assad&rsquo;s speech, lifting fines and punishments on those who fled military service.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What you are seeing is a war of attrition with the regime in a downward spiral,&rdquo; said Amr al-Azm, a former Syrian official who is now an activist with the opposition. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a case of if but when it&rsquo;s going to lose Deraa and Aleppo.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Last month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group with wide contacts inside Syria, said that 70,000 individuals have avoided compulsory army service. The regime has sought to deploy thousands of local militiamen under the umbrella of what it calls the National Defence Forces, using them as shock troops directed by the army.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55ba58f3371d22a40e8bb163-1948-1712/2000px-syria13.png" alt="syria" data-mce-source="@ArabThomness" data-link="https://twitter.com/arabthomness?lang=en" />The institutionalisation of the militias has given the army some breathing space to continue to prosecute the battle, ceding much of its role to irregular forces.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The regime took a big hit in the spring time with the loss of Idlib and Palmyra and Jisr al-Shughour and it looked to some that the regime&rsquo;s wheels were falling off,&rdquo; said Joshua Landis, a long-time Syria observer and director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. &ldquo;But in fact the regime has once again shown that it is capable of responding to these setbacks by changing its modus operandi.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Landis said the growing power of the militias and the high number of draft dodgers was an indication of the weakness and exhaustion of the Syrian military, and particularly Assad&rsquo;s Alawite base, after a four-year insurgency.</p>
<p>But he said the regime&rsquo;s resilience in fighting for Aleppo and Deraa is likely because it feels its own legitimacy is under threat if it cedes most of Syria to the rebels. Such an event would spell a de facto partition of the country, an issue &ldquo;so freighted with notions of surrender, great power conspiracy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement">Sykes-Picot 2&rdquo;</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/555d460decad04be1179801b-3000-1999/ap579329787656.jpg" alt="Palmyra" data-mce-source="SANA via AP" data-mce-caption="This photo released on Sunday, May 17, 2015, by the Syrian official news agency SANA, shows the general view of the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, northeast of Damascus, Syria." />Its persistence in trying to hold those two cities comes despite urging by Iran that the regime focus on holding its core strongholds in the western part of the country.</p>
<p>The loss of Aleppo and Deraa would restrict the Syrian regime to a strip of territory in the west, stretching from Damascus through Homs, Hama and Latakia, and the Qalamoun mountain range straddling the Lebanese border that is defended by Hezbollah.<br tabindex="-1" /> <br tabindex="-1" /> Landis said many Syrians, and Alawites in particular, are privately acknowledging that partition is the likely outcome of the war, a notion fuelled by the decreasing likelihood of an outright military victory, the primacy of hardline conservative groups such as the al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front and the salafist Ahrar al-Sham, and the failure of fractious rebel coalitions to govern liberated territories under persistent regime aerial campaigns.</p>
<p>In a recent interview, the al-Nusra Front&rsquo;s leader said Alawites must abandon both the regime and their religion in order to coexist with other Syrians if the regime falls. Such statements mean that Assad preserves his constituency of middle and upper class Syrians and minorities, said Landis.<br tabindex="-1" /> <br tabindex="-1" /> &ldquo;It means he can continue to fight his war,&rdquo; he said.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-will-not-work-with-us-to-fight-is-2015-8" >Iran diplomat: We will not work with US to fight ISIS</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/assad-faces-military-setbacks-in-syria-2015-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-oil-smuggling-isis-iraq-syria-2014-10">Turkey's Latest Plan To Drain $3 Million A Day From ISIS Is Working</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/eu-official-calls-greek-referendum-part-of-a-negotiating-strategy-gone-wrong-2015-7EU official calls Greek referendum part of a negotiating strategy gone wronghttp://www.businessinsider.com/eu-official-calls-greek-referendum-part-of-a-negotiating-strategy-gone-wrong-2015-7
Sat, 04 Jul 2015 09:52:27 -0400Alberto Nardelli
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5597e31669bedd594ee117d9-2467-1850/george-papandreou-aleka-papariga-alexis-tsipras-antonis-samaras-george-karatzaferis-karolos-papoulias.jpg" border="0" alt="attached image" style="color: #000000;"></p><p>Debt relief was not on the table during negotiations to extend Greece’s existing bailout programme, and agree a package of reforms needed to unlock its remaining funds, according to a senior EU official.</p>
<p>The official told the Guardian that debt relief was “politically highly toxic for many eurozone member states”.</p>
<p>Any form of debt restructuring would only be possible as part of a new programme – which would be Greece’s third – and only after the country provided assurances that it would really implement reforms and demonstrate that no further relief would be needed in future.</p>
<p>However, even then, writing off some of the debt would be a “no-go”, the official said.</p>
<p>A more realistic option would be applying “very long maturities with 0 [%]-interest” on the existing debt.</p>
<p>The revelation is at odds with the position of the International Monetary Fund, which said earlier this week that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/02/imf-greece-needs-extra-50bn-euros">Greece needed an extra €60bn of funds and debt relief</a> to provide its economy with “breathing space” to stabilize.</p>
<p>According to the IMF’s analysis, Athens’ debts are unsustainable and require large-scale relief: a 20-year grace period, or a haircut that yields a reduction in debt of more than 30% of GDP.</p>
<p>However, the EU official believes that the debate over debt relief is irrelevant because creditors needed assurances that Greece did not want to provide.</p>
<p><img class="span4 pull-left" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5597e2e4ecad049c06122842-4075-3056/demonstrators-during-a-rally-in-athens-greece-29-june-2015-greek-voters-will-decide-in-a-referendum-next-sunday-on-whether-their-government-should-accept-an-economic-reform-package-put-forth-by-greeces-creditor-greece-has-imposed-capital-controls-with-the-banks-being-closed-untill-the-referendum-photo-by-.jpg" border="0" alt="attached image" style="color: #000000;">When asked why he thought Greece had called a referendum on whether to accept the creditors’ proposals, the official says that he believes that the vote is an escalation of a negotiating strategy gone wrong.</p>
<p>First, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, would have been unable to get a credible agreement through parliament.</p>
<p>Second, the finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, had been calculating with 100% confidence that the EU would not allow an exit from the euro because of political and geopolitical considerations.</p>
<p>Because of these two factors the Greek government pretended to negotiate while waiting for a political solution. But a deal was close even under these “fake negotiations”, so they chose to escalate the situation</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The official is adamant that if the first bailout programme had been fully implemented, Greece would have been recovering in three to four years like Ireland or Portugal.</span></p>
<p>Instead there were no structural reforms. This lead to “ad hoc savings” to meet fiscal targets, which are bad for growth.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p>This article was written by Alberto Nardelli from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/eu-official-calls-greek-referendum-part-of-a-negotiating-strategy-gone-wrong-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/qualities-bad-leader-micromanagement-complaining-2015-6">4 things a leader should never do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-will-happen-if-greece-decides-not-to-pay-back-its-debt-2015-6Here's what will happen if Greece decides not to pay back its debthttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-will-happen-if-greece-decides-not-to-pay-back-its-debt-2015-6
Sun, 28 Jun 2015 12:05:32 -0400Phillip Inman
<h2><strong>What happens on Monday when</strong> <strong>the banks open?</strong></h2>
<p>The Greek central bank has kept the main banks supplied with euro notes. Most branches that opened on Saturday were able to keep churning out notes with a few exceptions put down to administrative hiccups.</p>
<p>ATMs are also expected to be working on Monday, though it is likely that the long queues in some parts of Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities will have forced some of them to be closed.</p>
<p>Much depends on how united the government remains in the face of a backlash from Brussels, which forced the Papandreou government to abandon a similar referendum in 2011. A Northern Rock-style panic could see billions of euros withdrawn electronically by savers and businesses, as happened last week. This would force the ECB to supply further funds to the Greek central bank to cover the shortfall.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5590192269bedd34068b6716-1200-924/greek-bank-line-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Greek bank line"></p>
<h2><strong>What happens on Tuesday when</strong> <strong>the current bailout expires?</strong></h2>
<p>At this point European Central Bank president Mario Draghi and the Frankfurt-based organisation’s board will need to decide if the decision to hold a referendum warrants an extension of its support.</p>
<p>The ECB has purchased Greek bank assets at a discount to maintain a flow of funds from Frankfurt to Athens. If the ECB freezes the operation, the Greek banks would soon run out of cash, forcing the government to impose capital controls.</p>
<h2><strong>Will the ECB maintain its funding operation?</strong></h2>
<p>Unlikely. Draghi has already made it known that he wants EU politicians – not the ECB – to decide on the fate of Greece. In the meantime Draghi will keep funds flowing to Athens. However, the agreement by EU finance ministers to cut off funding from Tuesday is expected to force his hand.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5590194f6da811d156c65599-1200-924/ecb-imf-draghi-greece-talks-3.jpg" border="0" alt="ecb imf draghi greece talks"></p>
<h2><strong>What about the repayment of €1.6bn to the IMF?</strong></h2>
<p>This payment will be missed. It is made up of three separate debt payments due this month rolled up by Athens and delayed until 30 June. A further delay puts Greece in arrears, the IMF said, but not default. Creditors know that calling repayment delays a default could allow private investors, holding about €100bn of debt, to demand their money back and push the country into bankruptcy.</p>
<h2><strong>How will a referendum resolve</strong> <strong>the matter?</strong></h2>
<p>It won’t, unless voters accept the creditors’ terms. A vote to accept their demands will bring forward pension reforms (ending early retirement this week, not over a period of several years), higher VAT rates on medical supplies, catering and purchases made on Greek islands, while abandoning proposals to increase corporation tax rates.</p>
<p>Rejecting the demands will put Syriza back at the negotiating table to repeat its central demand – that expensive short-term loans with the ECB be swapped for cheaper long-term loans with the commission.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/559019806da811d259c6559b-1200-924/german-angela-merkel-greek-prime-minister-alexis-tsipras-5.jpg" border="0" alt="German Angela Merkel Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras"></p>
<h2><strong>Would the creditors back down should voters reject their proposals?</strong></h2>
<p>Brussels and the IMF are likely to view the verdict as a preference for life outside the euro, where rules exist to borrow from a central fund and repay according to a negotiated timetable, just as the Irish and Portuguese have done.</p>
<p>The creditors have admitted mistakes in underestimating the damaging effects of previous demands for public spending cuts as the price of bigger loans.</p>
<p>However, it is now the view of most eurozone countries that pension reforms in particular are needed to stabilise Athens’ perilous finances, especially the need to prevent 400,000 people who currently qualify for an early retirement pension being able to somehow get under the wire and claim one.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p>This article was written by Phillip Inman from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-will-happen-if-greece-decides-not-to-pay-back-its-debt-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/qualities-bad-leader-micromanagement-complaining-2015-6">4 things a leader should never do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/david-pemsel-becomes-guardian-media-group-chief-executive-2015-6The Guardian appoints David Pemsel as its chief executivehttp://www.businessinsider.com/david-pemsel-becomes-guardian-media-group-chief-executive-2015-6
Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:57:00 -0400Lara O'Reilly
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54c8cf846da811eb1ee22f15-1200-924/david-pemsel-guardian-1.jpg" border="0" alt="David Pemsel Guardian"></p><p>Guardian Media Group, the owner of The Guardian newspaper and websites, has promoted its deputy CEO David Pemsel to chief executive.</p>
<p>He replaces <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2015/jan/29/andrew-miller-steps-down-as-chief-executive-of-guardian-media-group">Andrew Miller, who announced in January he was leaving the company</a> at the end of June 2015. Miller had been in the role since 2010 and worked to implement a five-year turnaround plan with the aim of securing The Guardian's financial future.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1504045/guardian-owner-picks-pemsel-as-new-chief-exec">Sky News sources say Pemsel saw off competition from "an unidentified UK-based Google executive." </a></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In an e-mailed press release, Guardian Media Group's chairman Neil Berkett said: "David has been a key architect of GNM’s commercial success, digital strategy and international expansion. I am therefore delighted that he is now stepping up to the top job, unquestionably one of the most demanding and exciting roles in the media industry. I know that he will build on the strong strategic platform put in place by Andrew Miller, who has done an outstanding job as chief executive. David’s appointment, following a thorough executive search, signals our confidence in the future potential of our journalism and our portfolio.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pemsel joined The Guardian in 2012 as its chief marketing officer, having previously worked as a marketing consultant to the company, helping appoint advertising agency BBH, </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/video/2012/feb/29/open-journalism-three-little-pigs-advert">which created the newspaper's award-winning "Three Little Pigs" ad campaign.</a></p>
<p>He was promoted at the end of 2012 to become Guardian News and Media's chief commercial officer. In 2013, he was promoted once again, and became the publisher's deputy CEO, a move that many people in the industry saw as priming Pemsel for the top job at the company.</p>
<p>Pemsel has overseen several major projects in his time at The Guardian including the launch of a new content marketing division Guardian Labs, launching a Membership scheme for readers, acquiring an events space in London, restructuring the commercial department, and relaunching The Guardian website <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/guardian-2015-digital-plans-2015-1?r=US">(which he spoke to Business Insider about earlier this year.)</a></p>
<p>Commercial highlights have included increasing <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/09/guardian-observer-publisher-guardian-news-media">overall revenue by 3% £215 million ($340 million) for the 2015 financial year</a>. Underlying losses were flat year over year at £20 million ($32 million.)</p>
<p>Prior to joining Guardian News and Media, Pemsel served as the group marketing director for UK TV broadcaster ITV for more than five years. He had also worked at London-based advertising agency St Luke's.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/guardian-2015-digital-plans-2015-1" >The Guardian Has A Fresh Plan To Take On MailOnline And The New York Times</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-pemsel-becomes-guardian-media-group-chief-executive-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jurassic-park-actual-size-dinosaurs-2015-6">This is how big dinosaurs actually were in real life</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-live-in-mosul-one-year-after-iraqs-second-largest-city-fell-to-isis-2015-6What it's like to live in Mosul one year after Iraq's second largest city fell to ISIShttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-live-in-mosul-one-year-after-iraqs-second-largest-city-fell-to-isis-2015-6
Wed, 10 Jun 2015 08:36:00 -0400Mona Mahmood
<p><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54e6f97269beddbf6f6dff08-800-600/isis.jpeg" border="0" alt="ISIS Mosul">Islamic State militants&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/10/iraq-sunni-insurgents-islamic-militants-seize-control-mosul" class=" u-underline" data-link-name="in standfirst link" data-component="in-standfirst-link">conquered Mosul</a><span>, Iraq’s second largest city, in a lightning advance in June 2014. </span></p>
<p><span>Here, residents of the city share their experiences of life under the militant group.</span></p>
<h3>Dr Firas Ghalib</h3>
<p><strong>Neurologist, 45, father of two children</strong></p>
<p>Mosul was on a volcano’s edge a couple of months before Islamic State’s militants crawled into the city. The Shia government in Baghdad always viewed Mosul as a hub of Ba’athists, undoubtedly because most senior army officers in the time of Saddam were from Mosul.</p>
<p>When Isis took control of Mosul, they treated locals decently, clearing out all checkpoints imposed by the army and opening roads. People could not believe their eyes that there was no Shia army in the city, no more detainees and bribes.</p>
<p>I was in a mosque attending Friday prayers when the Isis imam said: “After prayers you all have to pledge your allegiance to Caliph al-Baghdadi, your emir.” I and many men wanted to flee to avoid pledging allegiance but we were stopped by militants who were guarding the mosque. The imam started to recite the pledge and we had to repeat after him: “We pledge our allegiance to the emir, that we would obey him and not rise up against him.”</p>
<p>The second Friday, the imam said: “Caliph al-Baghdadi has set a deadline for Christians in Mosul to withdraw by Saturday afternoon. We asked their priests to come and discuss the tax they should pay to us, and they declined.” One of my Christian friends was a doctor and churchgoer.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54512be2eab8ea2e7047b155-1200-706/screen shot 2014-10-29 at 12.18.08 pm.png" border="0" alt="Iraq ISIS Mosul Map" style="color: #000000;">I asked him: “Why did your priests not go to the meeting with Isis?” He replied: “Our priests had a terrible experience with Isis in Syria. Two priests went to negotiate with them in Aleppo and they never came back. Quite simply, there is no trust.”</span></p>
<p>Christians were given three choices: either convert to Islam or flee Mosul or get killed. My Christian friend told me that many Christian families in Hay al-Baker in Mosul converted to Islam because they were poor and could not afford to flee to Irbil.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The hospitals began to bleed doctors who were not able to cope with the unusual situation, especially female doctors and nurses who had to wear a veil all the time. My hospital was also full of Isis militants who were monitoring all the wards and medical staff. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The hospital began to run out of anaesthetics, which we were using primarily for Isis militants who get wounded during the battles. Some of the cleaners in the hospitals engaged with Isis to gain some authority, warning doctors who were not obeying the rules.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/550c67ffecad049b4f7c008a-1200-750/rtr4mqwl.jpg" border="0" alt="mosul" style="color: #000000;">One would shout that he would “smash your head with my shoes” if a doctor was late. All female dentists were prohibited from treating men and vice versa. I used to receive both sexes in hospital and my private clinic, but I was haunted by the nightmares of being lashed in public. I wrote a note and hung it on the door saying: “I examine men only.”</span></span></p>
<p>I<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">sis monitors in the hospital told me that being the only neurologist in the hospital, I was allowed to examine both sexes. I refused and insisted on getting a fatwa that guaranteed I would not be lashed. I was told there was no such fatwa. A few of my old female patients were begging me to examine them, but I apologised.</span></p>
<p>I can’t forget when the only female anaesthetist in the hospital quit her job and we had women who needed caesarean operations, and we asked for the help of another hospital who sent us one of their male anaesthetists to save the lives of the patients. When the male anesthetist reached the hospital, the Isis monitor denied him access for being male. Two women died that night.</p>
<p>I know a professor at Mosul University who was caught by the Isis <em>hisbah</em> (religious police) in a room with his female colleague correcting students’ final exams notes. The penalty was that he had to marry his female colleague or get 30 lashes. The professor refused as he already had a wife and children, and he accepted the lashes.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54c0e6d669bedda70b9135d7-1200-706/461879544.jpg" border="0" alt="mosul air strikes isis" style="color: #000000;">I was with my wife in the car driving towards my parents house, and my wife had to take off her veil to breastfeed our little baby. The veil was keeping the blowing air off the baby, who was also terrified of her mother’s face being covered. Not that long after, an Isis <em>hisbah</em> patrol saw me and maintained that my wife should wear the veil under whatever circumstances, otherwise I would be in trouble.</p>
<p>I left Mosul with my wife and two children recently and went to Irbil.</p>
<h3>Basheer Aziz</h3>
<p><strong>College graduate, 26, supports Isis</strong></p>
<p>Mosul before Isis was like a grand, horrifying prison. It was a daily bet, who could make it to the first lecture in the morning, considering the long journey to the College of Sciences in Mosul, which was almost like travelling to another province.</p>
<p>The bus had to stop by countless army checkpoints where there were feverish hunts for men’s IDs. Often, the whole bus would wait for an hour or two while a soldier was engaged in beating a passenger who happened to be not holding his ID.</p>
<p>Islamic State is the dream and utmost desire of any Muslim. We longed to be governed by the holy Qur’an’s rules and the prophet Muhammad’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnah"><em>sunnah</em></a>.</p>
<p>Now, with any call to prayer, all shops are shut down. Men have to grow their beards. Any act of adultery will be dealt with either by stones or lashes. The penalty of looting is a hand cut and men are imprisoned for publicly harassing women.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53fcf2c269bedd07148b4568-840-494/mosul dam.jpg" border="0" alt="mosul dam isis"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Then Isis </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">diwans</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> (departments for health, complaints, preaching and mosques, education, almsgiving, </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">hisbah</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and services) were established. The almsgiving department is in charge of collecting taxes to divide among needy families. Each family receives $25 a month, an amount that will be raised to $50 with the harvest season, in addition to a good portion of wheat, rice, sugar, pickles, food oil and fuels.</span></p>
<p>The health department runs all hospitals in Mosul, Raqqa and Anbar and divides military medical staff and treatment among all fighting zones. Isis does not hire any doctor if he does not pledge his allegiance to Islamic State and never sends doctors to other provinces if they prefer to stay in their towns.</p>
<p>Recently, an exclusive market for women was opened in Mosul to allow them to do their shopping at ease. There is no ban on women driving. The Isis municipality is doing its best to keep roads clean and paved, setting up lampposts, providing water and power and repairing the damage from coalition air strikes.</p>
<p>I feel so proud being part of Isis, it granted me freedom. We live in glory now except for the coalition air strikes that spread panic and fear among the civilians.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I disagree with Isis practices against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in Mosul. I’m still in touch with our Christian neighbours and wish they would come back shortly. All people in Mosul are in disagreement with </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/isis-fighters-destroy-ancient-artefacts-mosul-museum-iraq">the demolition of ancient sites in Mosul</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, and some Isis militants are not happy either.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54512be1eab8eaac6947b152-1200-706/screen shot 2014-10-29 at 12.15.08 pm.png" border="0" alt="Iraq ISIS Fighter Mosul" style="color: #000000;">I discussed that with some of the young men of Mosul who joined Isis, and they said: “We did not know where these orders were coming from, the sharia court in Mosul was in astonishment too.” Amazingly enough, they told me that Isis is on its way to set up an archaeology department to excavate ancient sites in Mosul.</p>
<p>There is an acute financial crisis in Mosul now due to lack of jobs. Only those who receive monthly salaries from the government in Baghdad are surviving in Mosul. People do not know if Isis will last forever, or if another military organisation will come and exact revenge on those who were working for Isis. Depression is widespread among people of Mosul now.</p>
<p>At the same time, most of the people are against the return of the corrupt politicians or Shia militias who will destroy the city, not liberate it as they claim. Isis with all its brutality is more honest and merciful than the Shia government in Baghdad and its militias.</p>
<h3>Shaima Yousif</h3>
<p><strong>Widow and mother of four,</strong> <strong>33,</strong> <strong>whose hand was chopped off for stealing</strong></p>
<p>I did not have that much freedom to determine the pattern of my own life, coming from a middle-class family in one of the oldest districts in Mosul that is packed with people living in shabby little houses. My father, who had a grocery store in the neighbourhood where we used to live, thought school was good for my brother, Yasser, but not for me or my two sisters.</p>
<p>“It is a waste of time and money,” my father told me once. I was hardly permitted to complete my primary school education, as my father was impatient to have me at home helping my mother with housework.</p>
<p>A relative who used to work in a store for car repairs in Mosul city came to ask for my hand. The moment my eyes fell on him, I felt I could not live with such a man who looked almost like my father, being 10 years older than me. He seemed tough, rigid and uneducated. Simply speaking, he was not the man of my dreams. I told my father: “Sorry, I’m not in a hurry to get married.” My father’s response was: “I’m in a hurry, you are 18 now. I prefer you marry a man I get to know with a good income.”</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5502a4066da811f1302b3746-1200-858/mideast iraq islamic _mill.jpg" border="0" alt="ISIS Mosul Iraq"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Last June, Isis took over Mosul and dominated the scene in the city. I advised Kareem, my husband, to leave his job and for us to flee together to Turkey. He was nearly convinced, but learned that he would be murdered soon if he did not assist Isis in repairing damaged vehicles left by the Iraqi army to use in their military operations.</span></p>
<p>I will never forget the day when my husband rushed out early in the morning to a deserted military camp in the suburbs of Mosul to fix damaged military equipment belonging to Isis. He was killed by an air strike.</p>
<p>Isis men kept coming to my husband’s parents’ house during the funeral in a pickup loaded with food for us and for the mourners. They also brought $300 in cash for the kids with a promise to keep sending $100 a month as a pension.</p>
<p>I struggled to cope with my children’s daily demands. I sold my daughter’s bracelets at the jewellery shop, and went back the next day and slipped on a ring and walked out, hoping the owner would not recognise me with all the women wearing the veil. I walked out of the shop but the owner stopped me, and a woman from the Isis female security forces took me to their centre.</p>
<p>“Why did you steal the ring?” an Isis interrogator asked me. I answered in tears, “I’m a widow of an Isis martyr with four children. I needed money to feed my children and pay the rent. Please forgive me.”</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54512be26bb3f7c00adea9fb-1200-706/screen shot 2014-10-29 at 12.20.19 pm.png" border="0" alt="Iraq ISIS Mosul Protest"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I was questioned by two judges. The second day after my last hearing, I was taken from my room by three Isis women to another room where an old man was standing. He said: “Tie her to the table.”</span></p>
<p>I was tied firmly, and another man came with a sword in his hand. When I saw him, I began to shout, “Mercy, have mercy on me.” I screamed and begged him to leave me alone. He looked so determined. I wanted to run away but couldn’t. I couldn’t believe the whole scene, and thought it was a nightmare.</p>
<p>The man did not hesitate before chopping my left hand at the wrist. The whole world turned into black in my eyes and my legs were numb. No words in humanity’s dictionary can describe my pain and feeling at that horrifying moment. I fainted immediately.</p>
<p>My eldest daughter wept all the time whenever her eyes met mine in the hospital. I was discharged and went home. I tried to commit suicide a few times by strangling myself but the image of my little children kept stopping me. I live now for them and have vowed to make sure they all finish their education and marry only the men they love.</p>
<h3>Ghazwan Abdul Rahman</h3>
<p><strong>High school graduate, 19, supports Isis</strong></p>
<p>I was chatting with my friend about college when all of a sudden I received a hell of a push on my back. A towering man in Isis clothing was pushing aside any man obstructing his way towards the owner of the bakery. “I want some bread now, I can’t wait and need to go back to my other fighter brothers,” he said.</p>
<p>But the owner told him to join the queue like the others. The argument heated up and the Isis fighter lost his patience, and directed a kick to the face of the owner, filled his bag with bread and dashed away after leaving some money on the table.</p>
<p>We were all in an absolute silence watching without being able to say a word or do anything. The owner was bleeding from his nose. Two or three men ran to help and stop the bleeding while the owner vowed that he would complain to the sharia court.</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55433e57dd08959d588b4622-1200-858/islamic state kobani _mill (4).jpg" border="0" alt="islamic state kobani"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">After two days, Isis police from the sharia court were in the bakery asking witnesses if the fighter or the owner provoked the situation and attacked first. All the men in the bakery confirmed that the fighter was the offender and the owner was merely trying to be fair and keep customers in queue. The sharia court verdict was in favour of the bakery owner and the Isis fighter had to apologise to him publicly. Then he was kicked out of the caliphate for his uncivilised behaviour.</span></p>
<p>Isis succeeded in winning people’s hearts in Mosul from the first day they liberated the city for being modest, unprejudiced and cooperative. They restored the dignity and pride of the Sunni man in Mosul after enduring a great deal of humiliation and revenge under successive Shia governments since the US occupation of Iraq.</p>
<p>Corruption was widespread and eroding all the city facilities, which were like a huge military barracks suffocating people. The city did not witness any reconstruction for the entire last 10 years despite all the billions that were poured into the city council.</p>
<p>Mosul now lives in a golden era. Though world media is in an effortless campaign to mar the image of Isis fighters, show them as brutal terrorists and monsters, on the contrary they are most welcomed in Mosul for the great sacrifices they have offered to protect Sunni people from the Shia army’s inhuman practices in Mosul and other Sunni provinces in Iraq.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5533e563eab8ead05f514ea8-1200-800/isis isil islamic state flag iraq truck security.jpg" border="0" alt="ISIS ISIL Islamic State Flag Iraq Truck Security" style="color: #000000;">Isis locals and foreign fighters deserve all the love and respect by people in Mosul. Why is it all right for Shia militias in Iraq to have Lebanese, Iranian and Afghan fighters while it is unacceptable for us to have foreign fighters to defend us?</span></p>
<p>Foreign fighters have integrated excellently within the Mosul community now, and have become a fundamental part of some families in Mosul. Lots of tribes in Mosul whose men joined the Isis army last year have accepted marriage offers by some foreign fighters as they prove to be most reliable and courageous. They are utterly untrue, all these stories about forced marriage by Isis foreign fighters to women in Mosul.</p>
<p>None of the people in Mosul who pledged their allegiance to Caliph al-Baghdadi want Shia militias to get close to Mosul. I would be the first to fight these militias who come to sow destruction and killing among Sunnis. We have seen their atrocities in Tikrit and Jurf al-Sakher against isolated civilians.</p>
<p>Mosul is more stable and safe now, my father can leave his shop open and go for prayers, and no one dares to steal a straw from the shop. Civil services are better now, like power and water, and roads are more clean. I spend most of my free time praying in mosques and attending courses in Islamic sharia and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith"><em>hadith</em></a>.</p>
<h3>Hashim Zakei</h3>
<p><strong>33, heavy smoker whose hand was cut off for stealing cigarettes</strong></p>
<p>The unavoidable three-year military service was the inevitable future for any confused student like me. I became more interested in learning cooking skills than military fitness and training. Serving officers and soldiers at least three meals a day, I was in the kitchen section all the time. Furthermore, I picked up a really dreadful habit, smoking heavily.</p>
<p>After serving in the army, I purchased a wooden cart to sell hummus and bread. I was busy selling sandwiches to students after an extended school day when a <em>hisbah</em> patrol parked by my cart, checking everyone in the street including me.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/556725c96da811151e9cfd92-1200-750/rtx1errn.jpg" border="0" alt="RTX1ERRN" style="color: #000000;">“Sir, I have nothing to hide, why are you searching me?” I asked. The man held the cigarette packet in his hand, and asked, “What about this?” I replied, “I’m sorry, I bought it for my old dad. As you know he is old, trying his best to quit.” On another day, I was busy setting up my cart with 10 cigarettes in my pocket, when a <em>hisbah</em> patrol came again to check the area.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Tobacco smuggling in the city never stopped after the Isis takeover. One morning, I saw a vendor selling men socks on the floor, hiding cigarette packs underneath. The vendor began to run as soon as he saw a </span><em style="line-height: 1.5em;">hisbah</em><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> patrol coming towards him. Some of the men picked cigarettes out of the socks, others were firing in the direction of the fleeing vendor.</span></p>
<p>I looked at the cigarette packs dispersed on the floor. I could not restrain myself from picking up five of them to put in my pockets. Within five minutes, <em>hisbah</em> militants were rounding me up as the intelligence man who spotted me was briefing them that I had stolen some of the cigarettes from the vendors.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I was taken to sharia court. After a few questions, the judge said to me: “You are a thief, the court decided to cut your right hand by the wrist.”</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/549844336da811333aaffb54-1200-706/screenshot 2014-12-22 16.16.14.png" border="0" alt="ISIS Islamic State" style="color: #000000;">Before the judge would complete his words, I felt like being hit by an electric shock all over my body. I began to cry out with terror, begging the judge for mercy, that I have a family. The judge said: “Islamic sharia rules are beyond any discussion.”</p>
<p>After three days I was taken by <em>hisbah</em> militants to a public park. My feet were tied to a wooden table as well as my left hand. An Isis man who was in a white Afghan dress holding a big sword said to me: “Do you want anything?” I said: “Mercy.” He said: “Anything else?” I said: “I’m the only breadwinner for my kids, please forgive me.” His answer was: “You shut up.”</p>
<p>Immediately afterwards he turned fast to cut my hand and severed it off my arm. I was bleeding heavily. Once my eye fell on my chopped hand, I fainted.</p>
<p>When I regained consciousness, I found myself in an Isis hospital with Iraqi doctors. When I got home, my father received me weeping and said: “Thank God, it was only your hand.”</p>
<p><em>All names of interviewees are pseudonyms.</em> <em>Additional reporting by Kareem Shaheen</em></p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a><img class="nc_pixel" src="https://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT02ZjQwZTE1MDFjOTg2Yjk3NDAxNGI0MjFlNDNiYTM3MSZwdWJsaXNoZXI9NzMwZWI4NmFiNTlmMGQ0MTkyNmFjNjViMDFmODNlMmY=" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-live-in-mosul-one-year-after-iraqs-second-largest-city-fell-to-isis-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientifically-ways-women-attractive-2015-5">6 scientifically proven features men find attractive in women</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-published-full-text-2015-5HERE ARE PRINCE CHARLES' SECRET LETTERS TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN FULLhttp://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-published-full-text-2015-5
Wed, 13 May 2015 11:02:00 -0400Lianna Brinded
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/555367a4dd089529158b4593-1200-924/prince-charles-5.jpg" border="0" alt="Prince Charles"></p><p>Secret letters sent from Prince Charles to British government ministers were finally published on Wednesday after a 10-year legal battle to reveal their contents.</p>
<p>They are dubbed the "<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/category/black-spider-memos">black spider memos</a>" because of Prince Charles' distinctive spirally handwriting. However, most were&nbsp;typed and not handwritten in the black ink.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=cabinet-office"><strong>You can read them in full here.</strong></a></p>
<p>The Monarchy also published an extremely long statement about being forced to disclose the letters.&nbsp;<strong><a href="http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/media/our-view/statement-the-publication-of-some-correspondence-between-the-prince-of-wales-and">You can read the statement in full here.</a></strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Out of the 27 letters, 10 were written by the Charles.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">14 were from ministers.</span></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">3 were letters between private secretaries.</span></li>
</ul>
<h1><strong>Summary of the letters</strong></h1>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em; color: #000000;"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55537403dd0895851e8b4588-1200-924/britains-prince-charles-4.jpg" border="0" alt="Britain's Prince Charles"></strong></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em; color: #000000;">Prince Charles complained to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-to-tony-blairs-ministers-2015-5#ixzz3a27oeKuk">Tony Blair about the lack of resources for British troops in Iraq</a>.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>The Prince was lobbying the prime minister to increase the country's defence budget.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Prince Charles wanted to <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-spider-memos-he-wanted-to-change-the-way-history-and-english-are-taught-in-schools-2015-5#ixzz3a28Jsbgz">change the way history and English are taught in UK schools.</a></strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But feared his ideas were too "old fashioned" and too "dangerous."</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;"><strong>Prince of Charles</strong>&nbsp;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/black-spider-memos-prince-charles-imaginative-flexibility-funding-new-zealand-antarctic-hut-scott-shackleton-2015-5#ixzz3a2C0vWsx"><strong>may have helped New Zealand's government get £250,000 to preserve some Antarctic huts.</strong></a>&nbsp;</span></p>
<ul>
<li>The Prince contacted the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell&nbsp;after hearing that the future of huts built by the British polar explorers Scott and Shackleton was under threat.&nbsp;<strong><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/black-spider-memos-prince-charles-imaginative-flexibility-funding-new-zealand-antarctic-hut-scott-shackleton-2015-5#ixzz3a2C0vWsx">Prince Charles may have helped New Zealand's government get £250,000 to preserve some Antarctic huts.</a></strong></li>
<li><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">His Royal Highness added his voice to concerns about the future of Smithfield Market.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Prince Charles r<span style="line-height: 1.5em; color: #000000;">aised concerns about the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-concerns-about-albatross-2015-5">plight of the albatross</a>&nbsp;to the&nbsp;Minister of State for the Environment, Elliot Morley.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: #222222; line-height: 1.5em;">He&nbsp;also voiced his disdain for people who want to protect badgers:</span></li>
</ul>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55536d27dd0895b02a8b45d6-597-106/badger.png" border="0" alt="badger"></p>
<p><strong>In Charles' conversations with&nbsp;Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, in 2004,&nbsp;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-thought-he-might-be-able-to-help-end-northern-irelands-ghettoes-2015-5">about regenerating historic buildings in Northern Ireland, he voiced concerns over "ghettoes."</a></strong></p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55536dd9dd08950e1b8b459e-1180-293/screen shot 2015-05-13 at 4.14.56 pm.png" border="0" alt="Prince Charles ghetto NI"></p>
<p><strong>Correspondence between Prince Charles with the&nbsp;Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the Secretary of State for Health, John Reid.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-spider-memos-on-beef-and-sheep-2015-5#ixzz3a2EpgANJ"><strong>Prince Charles wanted the government to persuade people to eat more meat.</strong></a></li>
<li><span>The&nbsp;<strong>European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medical Products (THMPD) was enacted into UK law in 2004</strong>, and fully implemented in 2011. According to the European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association (EHTPA), this left many practitioners of herbal medicine unregulated.&nbsp;<strong>This, in turn, meant that a significant number of herbal remedies, on which patients had come to rely, disappeared</strong>.&nbsp;</span></li>
<li><span>In 2005 the&nbsp;<strong>Department of Health was considering regulation of herbal medicine and acupuncture</strong>, following the European Directive.</span></li>
</ul>
<h1><strong>Background</strong></h1>
<p><span class="message_content"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/55537389dd0895411d8b4667-1200-924/britains-prince-charles-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Britain's Prince Charles">In 2005, Guardian journalist <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/release-of-prince-charles-letters-point-of-freedom-of-information-black-spider-memos">Rob Evans</a> applied for a Freedom of Information Request to see letters from from the <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-may-be-disappointing-2015-5">Prince of Wales&nbsp;sent to seven Whitehall departments between 2004 and 2005</a>. </span></p>
<p><span class="message_content">The government has fought against publication of the letters because they could&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/13/prince-charity-lobbied-government-homeopathy">expose Prince Charles' personal views on a variety of topics</a>. This is damaging because the&nbsp;<span>Royal family is expected to remain politically neutral (which is why, for instance, the Queen abstains from voting in general elections even though she is entitled to do so).</span><br></span></p>
<p><span class="message_content">However, after a decade-long battle between Whitehall and the Guardian, a collection of 27 letters will be released <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2015/mar/29/prince-charles-letters-graphologist#img-1">after the Supreme Court ruled in March they they must be made public</a>.&nbsp;<br></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">letters from the Prince of Wales have been&nbsp;dubbed the "spider memos" because of Charles' handwriting, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2015/mar/29/prince-charles-letters-graphologist#img-1">as seen on earlier letters to government ministers</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The letters that are being published in Wednesday's dump were sent to Labour ministers at several government departments which included&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">business, innovation and skills, children, schools and families, health and the environment, food and rural affairs and culture, media and sport.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/prince-charles-letters">In 2012</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the letters were nearly published but the attorney general at the time, Dominic Grieve, vetoed the information tribunal's decision to allow the public to read the letters because they “contain remarks about public affairs which would in my view, if revealed, have had a material effect upon the willingness of the government to engage in correspondence with the Prince of Wales, and would potentially have undermined his position of political neutrality.”</span></p>
<p>However, Freedom of Speech supporters, such as the Guardian, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/12/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-letters-published">say it is in the public's interest to know how Prince Charles used his position as a member of the Royal family to influence or intervene in legislation or policies</a> that would affect the ordinary Briton.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/28/dinah-rose-qc-prince-charless-letters">an upper tribunal in London upheld the Supreme Court's March decision to allow the letters to be published under the classification of "open material"</a> and this means the Guardian and other parties are able to publish the content of that material without restriction.</p>
<p>However, some redactions were made to the letters, where the court deemed parts of the content to not be in the public's interest.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Clarence House, which represents the Royal family, told the Guardian newspaper last month that it was “disappointed that the principle of privacy has not been upheld."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-published-full-text-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-critical-of-female-voices-annoying-npr-2015-3">Female voices can be annoying, and the reason why is totally unfair</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-to-be-published-2015-5Prince Charles' secret letters to the British government are about to published — here's why they could be damaging http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-to-be-published-2015-5
Tue, 12 May 2015 16:40:00 -0400Lianna Brinded
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/55526590dd0895e7158b463d-1200-924/prince-charles-4.jpg" border="0" alt="Prince Charles"></p><p>Secret letters sent from Prince Charles to British government ministers will finally be published on Wednesday after a 10-year legal battle to reveal their contents.</p>
<p><span class="message_content">In 2005, Guardian journalist Rob Evans applied for a Freedom of Information Request to see letters from <span>from the Prince of Wales</span>&nbsp;sent to seven Whitehall departments between 2004 and 2005. </span></p>
<p><span class="message_content">The government has fought against publication of the letters because they could&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/13/prince-charity-lobbied-government-homeopathy">expose Prince Charles' personal views on a variety of topics</a>. This is damaging because the&nbsp;<span>Royal family is expected to remain politically neutral (which is why, for instance, the Queen abstains from voting in general elections even though she is entitled to do so).</span><br></span></p>
<p><span class="message_content">However, after a decade-long battle between Whitehall and the Guardian, a collection of 27 letters will be released <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2015/mar/29/prince-charles-letters-graphologist#img-1">after the Supreme Court ruled in March they they must be made public</a>.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">letters from the Prince of Wales have been&nbsp;dubbed the "spider memos" because of Charles' handwriting, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/shortcuts/2015/mar/29/prince-charles-letters-graphologist#img-1">as seen on earlier letters to government ministers</a>.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The letters that are being published in Wednesday's dump were sent to Labour ministers at several government departments which included&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">business, innovation and skills, children, schools and families, health and the environment, food and rural affairs and culture, media and sport.</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/prince-charles-letters">In 2012</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the letters were nearly published but the attorney general at the time, Dominic Grieve, vetoed the information tribunal's decision to allow the public to read the letters because they “contain remarks about public affairs which would in my view, if revealed, have had a material effect upon the willingness of the government to engage in correspondence with the Prince of Wales, and would potentially have undermined his position of political neutrality.”</span></p>
<p>However, Freedom of Speech supporters, such as the Guardian, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/12/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-letters-published">say it is in the public's interest to know how Prince Charles used his position as a member of the Royal family to influence or intervene in legislation or policies</a> that would affect the ordinary Briton.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/28/dinah-rose-qc-prince-charless-letters">an upper tribunal in London upheld the Supreme Court's March decision to allow the letters to be published under the classification of "open material"</a> and this means the Guardian and other parties are able to publish the content of that material without restriction.</p>
<p>However, some redactions were made to the letters, where the court deemed parts of the content to not be in the public's interest.</p>
<p>A spokesperson for Clarence House, which represents the Royal family, told the Guardian newspaper last month that it was “disappointed that the principle of privacy has not been upheld."</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-to-be-published-2015-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-critical-of-female-voices-annoying-npr-2015-3">Female voices can be annoying, and the reason why is totally unfair</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-refuses-to-answer-questions-over-homophobic-russian-siri-2015-4Apple refuses to answer questions over 'homophobic' Russian Sirihttp://www.businessinsider.com/apple-refuses-to-answer-questions-over-homophobic-russian-siri-2015-4
Thu, 16 Apr 2015 11:45:16 -0400Hannah Jane Parkinson
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/552fd060eab8ea190ce8a4de-1200-924/siri-name-change-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Siri name change"></p><p>Apple is refusing to explain how and why the Russian language version of its voice-controlled virtual assistant, Siri, provided homophobic answers to queries relating to gay or lesbian topics.</p>
<p>The allegations first came to light when a Russian man called Alex, who lives in London, uploaded a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUC2GD351EU">video</a> to YouTube appearing to show Siri either evading questions or expressing a negative response.</p>
<p>Alex asked questions such as: “Are there any gay bars around me?”, “tell me about gay marriage?” and “how do I register a gay marriage in England?”</p>
<p>Siri’s answers? “I would have turned red if I could”, “you are so rude!” and “I will pretend I haven’t heard”.</p>
<p>These responses seem to suggest that the word gay (гей) in Russian has been programmed as profanity. Swear words in the English language version receive similar responses.</p>
<p>However, the following more nuanced response, doesn’t fit that pattern.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Is gay marriage normal?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The response? “I believe this emotion should be considered negative.”</p>
<p>When contacted by the Guardian, Apple refused to give further comment, replying with a single sentence saying only that Siri’s responses had been “fixed”.</p>
<p>Follow-up questions regarding the specific cause of the problem, and whether steps had been taken to ensure the incident wasn’t repeated, Apple declined to comment.</p>
<p>When the Guardian asked the Russian Siri questions on gay topics – also when in London – Siri seemed to offer neutral responses.</p>
<p>Telling Siri “I think I might be gay” prompted a philosophical response – quoting a version of the Socrates proverb “<a href="https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AF_%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8E,_%D1%87%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%BE_%D0%BD%D0%B5_%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8E">I know that I know nothing</a>”.</p>
<p><img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/16/1429183954849/6d1237e9-c10f-4361-852f-f9e3291beccd-460x276.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot of Siri in Russian " width="460" height="276"></p>
<p>Siri responded to my query about being gay with a philosophical response. Photograph: Apple/Hannah Jane Parkinson</p>
<p>When we asked Siri where the nearest gay bar was, Siri responded with “here’s what I found”, but instead of listing gay bars in the nearest location, pulled up the Wikipedia page on the term “gay bar”.</p>
<p><img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/16/1429184839936/029e3955-36a5-400f-afd5-d4e058a44cb5-236x420.png" border="0" alt="Siri screenshot in response to gay question" width="236" height="420"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">However, one request for information on the nearest gay or lesbian bars prompted a response about changing location settings.</span></p>
<p>Given that Apple is refusing to elaborate on what caused Siri’s closed-mindedness, it’s difficult to say what caused the “bug”.</p>
<p>It is possible that a rogue programmer set the Russian terms for gay and lesbian as curse words, which would automatically trigger Siri’s shocked and negative responses, as it would if a user were to say “fuck” in English, for instance.</p>
<p>Or, it might be that the words were bracketed as active sexual terms, rather than terms of orientation.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/tim_cook">@tim_cook</a> check russian speaking Siri reaction to everything gay. Is she homophobic?</p>
— Andrii Mandryk (@AndriiMandryk) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndriiMandryk/status/587536230340001792">April 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
<p>It has also been <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/32ix04/in_soviet_russia_siri_questions_you_homophobic/cqbz3ye">mooted</a> that Apple was trying to abide by Russia’s 2013 laws prohibiting “promotion” of homosexuality. The ruling seems to have become a blanket ban on providing information on homosexuality, or even mentioning its existence.</p>
<p>The idea that Russia was abiding by this law makes little sense, however, as iPhone and iPad owners are able to use the Russian Siri outside of Russian territory.</p>
<p>The episode will cause embarrassment to Apple whose own chief executive, Tim Cook, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/30/apple-chief-tim-cook-proud-to-be-gay">came out</a> as gay in October 2014, calling his sexuality “one of the greatest gifts God has given me”.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-32308428">contacted</a> by the BBC, Alex who uploaded the original video said: “I can understand if a company needs to adapt to the legislation of a country.</p>
<p>“Apple fixed it. But there hasn’t been an explanation as to how it happened in the first place.”</p>
<p>Siri has been in trouble many times before. In 2011, the assistant <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/dec/01/siri-abortion-apple-unintenional-omissions">declined to offer</a> information on abortion clinics. She also <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8984155/iPhone-Siri-software-tells-boy-12-to-shut-up-in-Tesco.html">swore</a> at a 12-year-old boy.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This article was written by Hannah Jane Parkinson from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</span><img class="nc_pixel" src="https://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT02NmZiMTY4MDliYWZlY2EzZGRiMDY0MzFhYmQ1NzQwNyZwdWJsaXNoZXI9NzMwZWI4NmFiNTlmMGQ0MTkyNmFjNjViMDFmODNlMmY=" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/siri-read-out-loud-iphone-apple-2015-3" >How to get Siri to read anything out loud </a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-refuses-to-answer-questions-over-homophobic-russian-siri-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/useful-siri-tricks-iphone-apple-2015-1">9 Cool Siri Tricks You Never Knew Existed</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-ncaa-tournament-2015-3WHERE ARE THEY NOW? 5 NCAA Tournament legends who came out of nowherehttp://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-ncaa-tournament-2015-3
Wed, 18 Mar 2015 11:48:00 -0400Erick Fernandez
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/550999b0ecad045464c7fbe9-1200-900/taylor-coppenwrath.jpg" border="0" alt="taylor coppenwrath"></p><p>The underdog heroes of March Madness are a unique brand of sports protagonist.</p>
<p>Over the course of a single game – sometimes a single play – they will subvert the odds, bracket seedings, and public expectations. They will be remembered for surprise breakouts or unforgettable game-winning shots. Their names become cemented in college basketball lore.</p>
<p>And like that, they’re gone.</p>
<p>Even the most hardcore fans of college hoops can lose track of a player after they graduate. If an NBA career doesn’t work out, the last image many sports fans have of these overnight stars is what they accomplished in the NCAA tournament.</p>
<p>Yet life goes on for March Madness heroes. Here’s a look at what five have done since their one shining moment.</p>
<h2>Ali Farokhmanesh, Northern Iowa, 2010</h2>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Northern Iowa clung to a one-point lead over top-ranked Kansas with 37 seconds left in a second-round thriller. With possession and 30 seconds left on the shot clock, conventional wisdom suggested the Panthers should milk as much clock as the Jayhawks would allow.</span></p>
<p>But Ali Farokhmanesh went for it all. The decision was bold and maybe a little reckless, but it paid off royally for the Panthers, who upset a stacked Jayhawks team that had been ranked No. 1 for all but three weeks of the season.</p>
<p>Farokhmanesh says pulling the trigger was just him “being aggressive” and knowing that he had “taken that shot a million times over [his] lifetime”.</p>
<p>It’s safe to assume that none of those previous attempts were enough to send millions of brackets up in flames – or to <a href="http://www.si.com/vault/cover/2010/03/29">land him on the cover of Sports Illustrated</a>.</p>
<p>Coming into the tournament, the champions of a very good Missouri Valley Conference felt a bit slighted with their seeding considering their body of work. “We were a good team,” Farokhmanesh tells the Guardian. “We were 28-4 going into the NCAA tournament and we only ended up with a No. 9 seed.”</p>
<p><em>[Related: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/ng-interactive/2015/mar/17/march-madness-2015-mens-ncaa-bracket">March Madness: follow the 2015 men's NCAA bracket</a>]</em></p>
<p>Panthers coach Ben Jacobson told his team to think of having to face the top-seeded Jayhawks as an “opportunity”. And the Northern Iowa guard took advantage with his unforgettable long-range dagger and subsequent game-sealing free throws.</p>
<p>Following his two-year career at the Cedar Falls, Iowa school, Farokhmanesh opted to play basketball abroad in Switzerland, Austria and Netherlands. After getting married and with a child on the way, Farokhmanesh and his wife Mallory decided to make a “family decision” and move back to the United States. He enrolled in graduate school at the University of Nebraska where he is studying educational administration.</p>
<p>The 27-year-old is currently serving as a <a href="http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&amp;ATCLID=209612980">graduate manager</a> under Nebraska coach Tim Miles. As a graduate manager, he does “a lot of everything in the program” including watching film and working with team scouts.</p>
<p>Farokhmanesh says he always knew he wanted to coach and hopes the next step after his time at Nebraska will becoming an assistant coach for a college team. Only time will tell if he can teach his future pupils how to make cold-blooded shots when the lights are burning brightest.</p>
<h2>Gabe Lewullis, Princeton, 1996</h2>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It’s the backdoor cut that will remain a staple of March Madness highlight reels for years to come: Princeton freshman Gabe Lewullis darting to the rim, collecting a textbook bounce pass and depositing the game-winning lay-up to vanquish UCLA in the first round of the 1996 tournament.</span></p>
<p>If someone had told Lewullis beforehand that his 13th-seeded Ivy League champions would upset the Bruins – one of the most storied programs in college basketball history and winners of the previous year’s tournament – he might have not believed them. “Going into this game I didn’t think we were going to win, to be honest with you” the former Tigers forward confesses.</p>
<p>The game was a tense, low-scoring affair, a pace that undoubtedly favored the methodical Tigers with the scored knotted at 41-41 in the final minute. Longtime coach Pete Carril, architect of the famed Princeton offense, opted to run a play very similar to what worked for them at the <a href="http://imgur.com/7lsdmHg">end of the first half</a>. As then, Lewullis was able to make the perfect backdoor cut and Steve Goodrich was able to make the “<a href="http://i.imgur.com/R2fwDma.gif">perfect pass</a>” for the game-winner.</p>
<p>Lewullis played for Princeton three more seasons and captained the Tigers his senior year. After graduating, he played overseas for a short period and also spent some time on <a href="http://www.usbl.com/teams.php?tid=16">USBL’s Pennsylvania Valleydawgs</a>, where his head coach was Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins.</p>
<p><em>[Related: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/18/they-ask-who-is-this-kid-varun-ram-on-life-as-an-indian-basketball-player">'They ask, who is this kid?': Varun Ram on life as an Indian basketball player</a>]</em></p>
<p>He decided against pursuing a basketball career and ended up going to medical school at Drexel University. A fellowship later found him playing the role of an assistant team doctor to the Boston Celtics during the 2010-11 season.</p>
<p>Lewullis ultimately made his way to Dover, Delaware where he currently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbsPInGqapg">works as an orthopedic surgeon</a> and a team doctor for a small college and high schools around the area.</p>
<p>As he continues his career path, the 38-year-old believes his tournament moment helped lead him to this point. “I’m glad I made the lay-up,” he says. “I can’t imagine what my life would be if I didn’t.”</p>
<h2>Curtis Blair, Richmond, 1991</h2>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“I was thinking to myself this is David vs. Goliath here,” recalls former Richmond point guard Curtis Blair of the build-up to the Spiders’ first-round matchup with Syracuse in 1991. “It’s an All-Star cast against a bunch of no-names.”</span></p>
<p>Despite being cognizant of their underdog status, Blair says the team still felt like they had a chance. “They were physically superior to us,” he admits. “But they never played a team like us before.”</p>
<p>The Richmond floor general scored a team-high 18 points and drained some crucial free throws down the stretch. Under Blair’s leadership and play, the Spiders became the first No. 15 seed to defeat a No. 2.</p>
<p>Blair says the magnitude of the accomplishment didn’t hit the team until later. He recalls how after the game they realized, “Shoot, this was a big deal, a 15 seed beating a 2 seed – and especially Syracuse.”</p>
<p>He played one more season with Richmond and was chosen in the second round of the 1992 NBA draft. After failing to stick with the Houston Rockets, Blair played abroad in Australia, Austria and Turkey.</p>
<p>Around his 30th birthday, he remembers a friend reaching out to him with the idea of refereeing. Although Blair says refereeing “never crossed [his] mind” before, he decided to pursue that career path and “fell in love with it”.</p>
<p>Blair started out refereeing middle school and high school games and, like any other job, worked his way up through the ranks. After “six or seven years” of officiating, he debuted as an NBA referee, where he’s worked <a href="http://www.basketball-reference.com/referees/blaircu99r.html">since 2008</a>.</p>
<p>Blair, 44, says his most memorable game as a referee was LeBron James’ return to Cleveland at the beginning of the 2014 season. He recalls that game having a “playoff atmosphere” in terms of buzz and fan excitement — though it’s hard to believe even the return of a king can compare to the slaying of a giant.</p>
<h2>Harold Jensen, Villanova, 1985</h2>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It’s been nearly 30 years since arguably the greatest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament: when No. 8-seeded Villanova stunned the top-ranked Georgetown Hoyas – a 35-2 juggernaut led by future Hall of Fame center Patrick Ewing – on 1 April 1985.</span></p>
<p>Though Rollie Massimino’s Wildcats had twice come close to upsetting the Hoyas during Big East conference play, few people outside of Villanova’s coaches, players and fans believed they had a chance to derail a Georgetown team gunning for their second consecutive national championship.</p>
<p>“We had a huge amount of respect for them” said Harold Jensen, the Wildcats’ unsung sixth man, “but I don’t think we were ever intimidated or worried about what we were up against.”</p>
<p>The shooting guard became an improbable hero for Villanova after going 5-for-5 from the field – and 4-for-4 from the free-throw line down the stretch – to finish with 14 points in the 66-64 stunner. “I found myself open a few times for some shots and was able to start hitting them early on,” said Jensen, who that year had averaged a modest 4.1 points per game.</p>
<p>After two more seasons at Villanova, Jensen was chosen by Cleveland in the sixth round of the 1987 NBA draft. He never played a game with the Cavaliers, and after playing a season in the now-defunct USBL he called it quits.</p>
<p>He subsequently co-founded a marketing and design company called Showtime Enterprises with a friend in 1989. In 2005, his company merged with the larger, Sparks Marketing Group, where he is currently an executive vice president.</p>
<p>Jensen, 50, says his time playing at Villanova has helped influence his professional career. “I learned a lot from sports. I learned a lot about competition, understanding your competition [and] preparation,” he said.</p>
<p>On a night when Villanova needed to be nearly perfect to win – the Wildcats shot a championship-game record 78.6% from the floor, missed just one shot after halftime and still only won by two – the unheralded sophomore from Trumbull, Connecticut was their standard-bearer.</p>
<h2>Taylor Coppenrath, Vermont, 2005</h2>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Vermont benefitted from several big-time performances when they upended the Syracuse Orange in the first round of the 2005 tournament. But one of the key players in the game was a hometown product with a unique look, unique name and unique game.</span></p>
<p>The talismanic forward was a major reason why the Catamounts even made it to the tournament. Coppenrath poured in more than 25 points per game and was <a href="http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050311/NEWS/503110373/1004/SPORTS">one of 23 finalists</a> for the John R. Wooden award for National Player of the Year. Yet even with a tight-knit team stacked with veteran talent, Vermont still entered as <a href="http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-basketball/story.cfm/story/1525907">20-point underdogs</a> against the Orange, who had won the national championship only two years prior.</p>
<p>Vermont had made the tournament as America East champions the previous two years – as a No. 16 seed in 2003 and a No. 15 seed in 2004. The selection committee awarded them with a No. 13 and a date with Syracuse in Worcester, Massachusetts – a venue near enough to enable a healthy traveling contingent from their Burlington campus. “We had a better seed and a better chance” Coppenrath recalls.</p>
<p>During the game, he believes that Syracuse had a game plan centered on trying to stop him. “I think they were very conscious of where I was on the floor most of the time,” Coppenrath says. The game was a taut, defensive battle – which played into Vermont’s favor.</p>
<p>Trailing by two near the end of regularion, Coppenrath was able to find a gap in Syracuse’s 2-3 zone and drained a game-tying shot that would send the game to overtime. A series of clutch three-pointers by teammates Germain Mopa Njila and TJ Sorrentine helped Vermont to a 60-57 stunner.</p>
<p>After graduating as the greatest player in school history, Coppenrath played with the Celtics’ and Pacers’ summer league teams, but he’s since carved out a permanent career overseas. After stops in Greece and Italy, he’s now in his eighth year playing in Spain. Coppenrath’s current squad is the <a href="http://www.cbtizona.es/">Autocid Ford Burgos</a>, a team based in the northern city of Burgos.</p>
<p>Coppenrath says he’s adjusted to the culture, but still struggles at times with the native tongue. “My Spanish has improved, but it still lacks,” he tells the Guardian. The team recently released a video with his highlights and him speaking some Spanish.</p>
<p>Coppenrath’s Spanish has yet to catch up to his game.</p>
<p>Although he says he’s faced some cultural obstacles, the 33-year-old says that he has “enjoyed the time” playing abroad.</p>
<p>This article originally appeared on <a rel="canonical">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>This article was written by Erick Fernandez from The Guardian and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</p>
<p><img class="nc_pixel" src="https://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT03MTc4YzMzNjk4MWMyZDY4MDM3M2UwYTE3YWE0YWY0ZCZwdWJsaXNoZXI9OGMwMGZiZWU2MWQ1YmNmMGM2MDkyZDhiOTJlYmJjYTE=" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1"></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-ncaa-tournament-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intense-circuit-workout-plank-army-crawlers-push-ups-2015-3">Here's an easy fat-burning circuit workout you can do using only a line</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/publishers-form-pangaea-advertising-alliance-2015-3The Guardian, Financial Times, Reuters, CNN, and The Economist have formed an ad alliance to take on Google and Facebookhttp://www.businessinsider.com/publishers-form-pangaea-advertising-alliance-2015-3
Wed, 18 Mar 2015 05:29:00 -0400Lara O'Reilly
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5509461b6da811376965d54e-727-857/screen shot 2015-03-18 at 9.31.52 am.png" border="0" alt="pangaea"></p><p>The Guardian, CNN International, Financial Times, Reuters and The Economist have banded together to form an advertising alliance they hope will have enough scale to take on the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.</p>
<p>Dubbed Pangaea, the new programmatic advertising network will pool together the publishers' collective audiences so advertisers can buy up advertising space across all of their sites in one transaction. Together, they will offer advertisers access to 110 million readers worldwide.</p>
<p>Pangaea, incidentally, is the name of the continent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea">that formed approximately 300 million years ago</a> and began to break apart after around 100 million years, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. We're sure the irony was not lost on the media executives (particularly those from newspapers, which are often accused of being dinosaurs compared with their newer digital counterparts) when coming up with the name.</p>
<p>Tim Gentry,&nbsp;global revenue director at Guardian News &amp; Media and Pangaea Alliance project lead, told Business Insider the name was actually created by a former trade marketing manager at The Guardian who was previously a geography student. The allegory reflects major continents coming together.</p>
<p>Pangaea will launch in beta from April 2015, partnering with adtech company Rubicon Project, which will act as the delivery platform. On the "human" sales side, the Pangaea project will be managed by a central team from across all the publishers involved. But when it officially launches later this year, Pangaea will be managed by its own separate sales team.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/2015/mar/18/worlds-leading-digital-publishers-launch-new-programmatic-advertising-alliance-pangaea">In a press release</a>, the Guardian, which is leading the project, says the benefit of using Pangaea isn't just its scale but the premium nature of the publishers' readers. One in four of the 110 million users across the Pangaea network are in top income segments, while one fifth are c-suite or senior management executives, The Guardian claims.</p>
<p>The partners involved will also share their first party data, which The Guardian says will offer advertisers a unique ability to understand this premium audience. The data from each publisher will be input into a central Pangaea data management platform (DMP) so advertisers can buy audiences like "frequent travelers" across the entire group.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55095b9169bedd4f76b3c3fa-1000-1335/tim gentry1 (1).jpg" border="0" alt="tim gentry guardian">When it comes to online advertising, scale is the name of the game. Alone, publishers like The Guardian (which has around 43 million monthly unique desktop users, according to comScore) find it difficult to compete with the likes of Facebook (which has around 1.4 billion monthly active users) when it comes to tempting advertisers to make their big, high-traffic digital advertising buys. Together, they can begin to close the gap and charge higher advertising rates, which are shared across the group.</p>
<p>Gentry would not reveal the exact revenue share between publishers, nor would he tell Business Insider the Guardian's ambitions for how much additional revenue it hopes the Pangaea network will add to its business. However, he said in the first few months he expects "small increments, rather than big transformations."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">T<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/09/guardian-observer-publisher-guardian-news-media">he Guardian Media Group is expected to grow revenues by 3% to £215 million in the year to March 29</a>, boosted by a 20% increase in digital sales.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Pangaea Alliance will not be limited to the launch publishers, with Gentry telling Business Insider it is in "advanced stage of discussion" with a couple of additional publishers about joining in the coming months.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-tv-and-iad-2015-3#ixzz3Ujb3pech" >Apple TV could wake up iAd, Apple's sleeping giant of an advertising business</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/publishers-form-pangaea-advertising-alliance-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/drunk-driving-checkpoint-regulation-hack-2015-2">A lawyer in Florida has come up with an ingenious way for drivers to evade drunken-driving checkpoints</a></p>